Classical Latin name.

Deciduous or semi-evergreen trees and shrubs, often with thorny lateral shoots. Leaves alternate, toothed and sometimes lobed, occasionally purplish. Flower clusters flat-topped. Flowers white to pink or deep rose, with 5 sepals and petals and 15-50 stamens. Ovary inferior, with 3-5 chambers, styles united at the base and with long tufty hair. Carpels mostly 5. Fruit a roundish pome with a tough-walled inner core of 1-5 chambers, each with 1-2 seeds.

Grown (sometimes as standards) for the attractive, often fragrant flowers mostly in spring, and colourful fruits in autumn (most are edible). Caution is needed in horticulture as many species are susceptible to Fireblight.

About 30 species from the temperate northern hemisphere in Eurasia and N America.

The common name 'crabapple' has a confused application, having originally been used for the noncommercial, sour-fruited species, but now often used for members of the genus Crataegus. The following species are occasionally cultivated: M. baccata (L.) Borkh. has flowers 3-4 cm wide with 4 styles and a deciduous calyx, fruits about 1 cm wide; it is generally grown as var. mandschurica (Maxim.) Schneid. from C China and C Japan, which has large white flowers and bright red fruits. M. ×gloriosa Lem. is a hybrid, M. 'Niedzwetzkyana' × M. ×scheideckeri; it is grown as 'Echtermeyer' ['Ökonomierat Echtermeyer'], Weeping Purple Crab, which has weeping branches and leaves that are purplish at first. The flowers are carmine and the fruits purplish red. M. halliana Koehne is a small tree from China and Japan with purple new growth. Leaves ovate to about 7 cm long, hairless. Flowers dark pink, about 3 cm wide, with 5-8 petals. Fruits purple, widest towards the tip, about 7 mm wide without the calyx. Generally grown as the cultivar 'Parkmanni', Parkmann Crabapple, which has double flowers with about 15 petals and was introduced in 1861 from Japan to the USA by Hall and named after historian Francis Parkman. There is a specimen east of Eggleston Rd on the Australian National University Campus. M. hupehensis (Pampan.) Rehder is a tree to about 10 m tall with hairy young shoots. Leaves ovate, to about 10 cm long. Flowers about 3 cm wide,white suffused with pink, fragrant. Fruits about 8 mm wide, yellow-green suffused with red. M. ×magdeburgensis Hartw., Magdeburg Apple, has double flowers with 10-15 pink petals to about 5 cm wide, very similar to M. ×domestica, with downy leaves with coarse teeth. Fruit yellowish with red blush, 4-5 cm wide, edible. Originated in Germany c. 1850 and a presumed hybrid, M. ×domestica × M. spectabilis. M. ×platycarpa Rehder (M. coronaria × M. ×domestica) is also listed. [M. coronaria (L.) Mill. var. platycarpa Rehder] M. ×micromalus Mak., a Japanese hybrid possibly originally from China, is a small tree with leaves ovate to oblong and downy below. Flowers pink, darkening in the centre. Fruit about 7 mm wide, red, with a persistent calyx. The parents are probably M. baccata and M. spectabilis. M. ×robusta (Carr.) Rehder is a hybrid, M. baccata × M. prunifolia, grown for its white flowers and yellow to red fruits. M. ×schiedeckeri (Spaeth) Zab. is a tree to about 10 m tall. Leaves ovate with largish sharp teeth, downy below at first, sometimes lobed on the new shoots. Flowers usually semi-double, about 3 cm wide. Fruits round, about 1.5 cm wide, yellow. A hybrid, M. floribunda × M. prunifolia, int. Spaeth nurseries, Berlin, 1888. Grown as 'Hillieri', selected at the Hillier Nsy, UK, in 1928 from a batch of Dutch seedlings. Flowers late, prolific and darker than those of the type. Fruits yellow, flushed red, soon shed. M. sylvestris (L.) Mill. from Europe is a tree to 6 m or so tall with roundish leaves having fine teeth and white flowers suffused with pink. The fruits are yellow-green with a reddish tinge when mature. M. toringo Nakai is a small pink-white-flowered shrub; the name is sometimes treated as a synonym for M. sieboldii (Regel) Rehder and thus M. toringo subsp. sargentii (also called M. sargentii Rehder) or alternatively M. sieboldii var. sargentii. M. yunnanensis (Franch.) Schneid from WChina is a tree to about 8 m tall.Young shoots with a felt of hair. Leaves to over 10 cm long, ovate, double-toothed, felted below, occasionally with 3-5 pairs of lobes. Flowers in spring. Fruit bright red, often speckled. M. ×zumi (Matsum.) Rehder, Zumi Crabapple, has flowers white, fruits mostly 4 together, about 3 cm wide, yellow (M. baccata var. mandschurica × M. sieboldii). 'Calocarpa', Redbud Crabapple, was raised at the Arnold Arboretum in 1890 from Japanese seed and int.1905, but only named in 1915; it produces abundant bright red persistent fruit to about 1.5 cm wide. 'Golden Hornet' is a seedling selection from 'Calocarpa' int.1955 by the Arnold Arboretum, USA, and bearing abundant showy golden fruits, each about 2.5 cm wide.

Cultivars mostly by budding and grafting, occasionally by cuttings; species by seed.

Commercial edible apples are derived from M. ×domestica.

Fruit a pome. Differing most noticeably from Pyrus in having the styles united at the base.

Heritage Collections VIC: Templestowe, cnr Monckton and Homestead Rds where, at Petty's Antique Apple Orchard, Melbourne Water, Yarra Valley Metropolitan Park, there is a 30 ha arboretum of nuts and economic trees together with a large collection of about 200 heritage apple cultivars; Ripponlea National Trust Gds, Elsternwick, has more than 100 heritage cultivars; Badger's Keep Nsy at Chewton, has a large range of old apple cultivars. TAS: Huon Valley Apple and Heritage Museum, Huon Hwy; The Grove Research Station, Pages Rd, Grove; Bob Magnus, Cygnet Rd, Woodbridge, has about 200 old cultivars.

Huckins (1967), Fiala (1994). Cultivars: Bultitude (1983). Journal: Malus (International Crabapple Society Bulletin).

of Malus is complicated by the many hybrids and the presence in older gardens of cultivars and species that are no longer commercially available. A key would be more likely to confuse than assist the process of identification.

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Rosaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.