Malus spectabilis (Aiton) Borkh.

Description

Malus spectabilis is a tree up to 8 m tall. Its leaves are elliptic, 5–8 cm long, with fine teeth pressed against the margin. The flowers, 4–5 cm across, are pink in bud and open white in April and May in China; the fruit is yellow, round, about 2 cm across, with its sepals still attached, and ripens there in August and September¹. The flowers sometimes have more than five petals, and the fruit tastes bitter². Plants with 34 and 51 chromosomes have been counted¹.

Range and habitat

The Flora of China records it on plains and in mountain regions at 500–2,000 m in Hebei, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Yunnan and Zhejiang¹, and the IUCN Red List adds Sichuan³. It is, however, unknown as a certainly wild plant². The IUCN Red List assessed it in 2014 as Data Deficient³.

Uses and history

It is one of the most famous ornamental trees in China, widely grown in the east and north¹, and it has been cultivated in northern China at least since the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), chiefly for its flowers but also for its fruit, eaten raw or processed, and as a rootstock². Forms with double pink flowers and double white flowers are grown¹.

Aiton described it, as a Pyrus, in 1789, noting that it had grown in 1780 in the East London garden of the Quaker physician John Fothergill. It was growing in North America by 1811, at the Elgin Botanic Garden in Manhattan. The semi-double cultivar Riversii was raised before 1864 by the English fruit breeder Thomas Rivers².

Where the sources disagree

• Wild or garden plant. The Flora of China and Plants of the World Online give it a native range in China^1,4; Trees and Shrubs Online describes it as unknown in the wild, with a hybrid origin long suspected but no likely parents identified². The 2022 revision of the genus lists it among the ornamental species and not among the wild ones⁵.