Crab Apple(Malus sylvestris)
DBH: 21.9 (cm) measured on01/28/2022
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malus sylvestris, theEuropean crab apple, is aspeciesof thegenusMalus,nativeto Europe. Itsscientific namemeans "forest apple" and the truly wild tree hasthorns.
Wild apple has an expanded crown and often appear more like a bush than a tree. It can live 80–100 years and grow up to 10 m tall with trunk diameters of 23–45cm. Due to its weak competitiveness and high light requirement, wild apple exist mostly at the wet edge of forests, in farmland hedges or on very extreme, marginal sites. The tree is rather rare but native to mostEuropean countries. It occurs in a scattered distribution pattern as single individuals or in small groups.[2]
In the pastM. sylvestriswas thought to be the most important ancestor of the cultivatedapple(M. pumila), which has since been shown to have been originally derived from the central Asian speciesM. sieversii.[3]However another recentDNA analysis[4]confirms thatM. sylvestrishas contributed significantly to the genome.
The study found that secondary introgression from other species of the genusMalushas greatly shaped the genome ofM. pumila, withM. sylvestrisbeing the largest secondary contributor. It also found that current populations ofM. pumilaare more closely related toM. sylvestristhan toM. sieversii. However, in more pure strains ofM. pumilatheM. sieversiiancestry still predominates.
The flowers arehermaphroditeand are pollinated by insects.
