Malus trilobata (Labill. ex Poir.) C.K.Schneid.

Description

Malus trilobata is a small tree or shrub up to 6 m tall, occasionally 10 m, with ascending branches and a narrow, sometimes almost columnar crown. Its leaves are deeply three-lobed, the lobes often divided again so that some leaves look almost palmate, like a maple’s, and they turn red in autumn. The white flowers are large, 3–4 cm across, and late, typically in June, with petals that narrow abruptly to a claw. The fruit is 1–3 cm across, round to pear-shaped, yellow-green and sometimes flushed red, with stone cells in its flesh¹.

Range and habitat

It grows in the eastern Mediterranean: in the eastern Rhodopes of Bulgaria, in Greek Thrace, in western and southern Anatolia, on Mount Lebanon and northwards, in Syria, and rarely in northern Galilee^1,4. It grows in forest and shrubland².

The IUCN Red List assessed it in 2017 as Near Threatened worldwide²; the European assessment of 2010 had listed it as Least Concern³.

History and uses

The French botanist Jacques Labillardière described it, as a hawthorn, in 1812, in a book on the plants of Syria¹; Plants of the World Online gives the original name as Crataegus trilobata Labill. ex Poir.⁴. It was introduced to the Arnold Arboretum in 1880 and was growing at Kew by 1900. Once rare in gardens, it is now promoted by nurseries as a disease-resistant tree for gardens and towns, and its narrow shape suits difficult urban sites¹.

Where the sources disagree

• Which genus. It is the apple most often listed under another genus, Eriolobus. Some botanists and gardeners keep it in Malus, others in Eriolobus; the few molecular studies that include it place it at the edge of a broadly drawn Malus¹. Plants of the World Online and the 2022 revision of Malus accept it as Malus trilobata^4,5.
• How threatened. The global assessment of 2017 lists it as Near Threatened²; the European assessment of 2010 as Least Concern³.