The World of Apples

Wild apples

Malus toringoides (Rehder) Hughes

Cut-leaf crabapple

Description

Malus toringoides is a shrub or small tree, 3 to 6 m tall. Its leaves vary in shape, 3–8 cm long, and are often deeply cut into three to five lobes. The flowers are 2–2.5 cm across with white petals; the fruit is yellow flushed with red, egg-shaped to narrowly oval and 1–1.3 cm long, and the sepals fall before it ripens. It flowers in April and May and fruits in September. Plants with 34, 51 and 68 chromosomes have been counted1.

In gardens it makes a small tree with an open crown, lightly fragrant creamy white flowers and leaves that colour well in autumn; its fruit reddens in the sun and often stays on the tree into December2.

Range and habitat

It grows in thickets on slopes at 2,000–3,000 m in south-eastern Gansu, western Sichuan and south-eastern Tibet1, and the IUCN Red List adds Shaanxi3. The IUCN Red List assessed it in 2014 as Data Deficient3.

History and relationships

Rehder first named it, as a variety of Malus transitoria, from specimens collected above 3,000 m in western Sichuan in 1904 and 1908, and Wilson collected its seed in Sichuan2; its type is a specimen collected west of Tachienlu, in Sichuan, in October 19086. It looks most like Malus toringo and Malus transitoria, and molecular evidence gives some support to the idea that it arose as a hybrid between M. transitoria and Malus kansuensis2.

Where the sources disagree

  • Its name. A specimen of it had been named Pyrus bhutanica in 1911, and in 1994 that older name was transferred to Malus as Malus bhutanica. The type came from a tree cultivated in a Tibetan monastery, and there is no suggestion that the tree grows wild in Bhutan. A proposal was made in 2008 to conserve the familiar name, and in 2021 Trees and Shrubs Online followed recent horticultural usage in calling it M. bhutanica2. Malus toringoides is now formally conserved against Pyrus bhutanica6, and Plants of the World Online and the 2022 revision both use it, with M. bhutanica as a synonym4,5.

Sources

  1. Malus toringoides, Flora of China vol. 9, Gu Cuizhi and Stephen A. Spongberg, Flora of China, eFloras.org, 2003. Supports: the description (shrubs or small trees 3–6 m, leaves 3–8 cm, often 3–5-parted, flowers 2–2.5 cm, petals white, pome yellow tinged red, obovoid or narrowly ellipsoid, 1–1.3 cm, sepals falling, flowering April–May and fruiting September, 2n = 34, 51, 68); thickets on slopes at 2,000–3,000 m in SE Gansu, W Sichuan and SE Xizang; basionym Malus transitoria var. toringoides Rehder (1915).
  2. Malus bhutanica, Julian Sutton and Nick Dunn, Trees and Shrubs Online (International Dendrology Society), 2021. Supports: slightly fragrant creamy white flowers; strikingly lobed leaves with autumn colour; fruit reddening in sun and often held into December; closest to M. toringo and M. transitoria; molecular support for a hybrid origin from M. transitoria and M. kansuensis (Feng et al. 2007); the name M. toringoides first used by Rehder for specimens collected above 3,000 m in western Sichuan in 1904 and 1908; the earlier Pyrus bhutanica (1911), combined in Malus by Phipps in 1994, typified by a tree cultivated in a Tibetan monastery, with no suggestion that it is native to Bhutan; a proposal to conserve M. toringoides (Qian et al. 2008); the use of M. bhutanica in recent horticultural works; the name purely a matter of nomenclature; Wilson's introductions from Sichuan.
  3. Malus toringoides, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T50085956A50085970, L. Rhodes and N. Maxted, 2016. Supports: Data Deficient, assessed 1 July 2014; native to China (Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Tibet); the common name cut-leaf crab apple.
  4. Malus toringoides (Rehder) Hughes, Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: accepted name and authority, nom. cons., published 1920; native range "E. Himalaya to China (W. Sichuan, SE. Gansu)"; Malus bhutanica (W.W.Sm.) J.B.Phipps and Pyrus bhutanica W.W.Sm. 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: accepted as Malus toringoides (Rehder) Hughes, nom. cons..
  6. Madrid Code Appendices I–VII: Appendix IV (Malus toringoides), John H. Wiersema, Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Supports: Malus toringoides (Rehder) Hughes (1920), based on M. transitoria var. toringoides Rehder (1915), conserved against Pyrus bhutanica W. W. Sm. (1911); type Wilson 1285, west of Tachienlu, Sichuan, October 1908; lectotype of P. bhutanica from Lalung Gumba, Tibet, 1906.