The World of Apples

Wild apples

Malus ombrophila Hand.-Mazz.

Changchiang River apple

Description

Malus ombrophila is a tree up to 10 m tall. Its leaves are ovate, 9–13 cm long, white-felted beneath and doubly toothed. The flowers are small, 1.5–1.8 cm across, with white petals, in clusters of four to thirteen. The fruit is red, roundish and 1.5–2 cm across, with a cup-shaped hollow at its tip and the sepals still attached. It flowers in June and fruits in August. It has 34 chromosomes in its body cells1. Its fruit, which can also be yellow-brown, is slightly larger than those of its relatives2.

Range and habitat

It grows in mixed forest along streams and in valleys at 2,000–3,500 m in south-western Sichuan, Tibet and north-western Yunnan1; the IUCN Red List adds Guizhou3. The IUCN Red List assessed it in 2014 as Data Deficient3.

History and relationships

The Austrian botanist Heinrich von Handel-Mazzetti described it in 1926 from his own specimen of 1916, collected in the far north-west of Yunnan near the borders with Tibet and Burma, in a warm temperate area of high rainfall. It belongs with Malus yunnanensis and Malus prattii to a group whose variation is not well understood, and it is very rare in cultivation2. Plants of the World Online and the 2022 revision of the genus both accept it as a species4,5.

Where the sources disagree

  • Identification. Trees and Shrubs Online treats any identification in this group as provisional: the collector Keith Rushforth considers that one wild collection grown as M. ombrophila belongs to Malus yunnanensis, and that another is close to a species from western Bhutan whose description is in preparation2.
  • Guizhou. The IUCN Red List includes Guizhou3; the Flora of China does not list it1.

Sources

  1. Malus ombrophila, Flora of China vol. 9, Gu Cuizhi and Stephen A. Spongberg, Flora of China, eFloras.org, 2003. Supports: the description (trees to 10 m, leaves 9–13 cm, white-tomentose beneath, doubly serrate, flowers 1.5–1.8 cm, petals white, pome red, subglobose, 1.5–2 cm, with a cupular cavity at the apex, sepals persistent, flowering June and fruiting August, 2n = 34); mixed streamside forests and valleys at 2,000–3,500 m in SW Sichuan, Xizang and NW Yunnan.
  2. Malus ombrophila, Julian Sutton and Nick Dunn, Trees and Shrubs Online (International Dendrology Society), 2021. Supports: very rare in cultivation; akin to M. yunnanensis and M. prattii, with unlobed leaves hairy beneath and slightly larger fruit; fruit yellow-brown to red; described in 1926 by Heinrich von Handel-Mazzetti from his own specimen of 1916, collected in far north-western Yunnan near the borders with Tibet and Burma, in a warm temperate, high-rainfall area; identifications in the group provisional; Rushforth's view that some collections belong elsewhere.
  3. Malus ombrophila, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T50049673A50049676, L. Rhodes and N. Maxted, 2016. Supports: Data Deficient, assessed 1 June 2014; native to China (Guizhou, Sichuan, Tibet, Yunnan); forest habitat; the common name Changchiang River apple.
  4. Malus ombrophila Hand.-Mazz., Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: accepted name and authority, published 1926; native range "Tibet to SC. China"; Prameles ombrophila among the synonyms.
  5. A revision of the genus Malus Mill. (Rosaceae), Jing-chao Li, Jian-quan Liu and Xin-fen Gao, European Journal of Taxonomy 853: 1–127, 2022. Supports: M. ombrophila accepted as one of 26 wild species.