Malus sylvestris

Malus sylvestris
Conservation status
Data Deficient  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Rosales
Family:	Rosaceae
Genus:	Malus
Species:	M. sylvestris
Binomial name
Malus sylvestris (L.) Mill.
Distribution map

Malus sylvestris, the European crab apple, is a species of the genus Malus, native to Europe. Its scientific name means "forest apple" and the truly wild tree has thorns.

Description

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 23-45 cm. 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 most European countries. It occurs in a scattered distribution pattern as single individuals or in small groups.^[1]

Progenitor of cultivated apples

In the past M. sylvestris was thought to be the most important ancestor of the cultivated apple (M. pumila), which has since been shown to have been originally derived from the central Asian species M. sieversii.^[2] However another recent DNA analysis^[3] confirms that M. sylvestris has contributed significantly to the genome.

The study found that secondary introgression from other species of the Malus genus has greatly shaped the genome of M. pumila, with M. sylvestris being the largest secondary contributor. It also found that current populations of M. pumila are more closely related to M. sylvestris than to M. sieversii. However in more pure strains of M. pumila the M. sieversii ancestry still predominates.

The flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated by insects.

Pests

Its leaves are food of the caterpillars of the twin-spotted sphinx (Smerinthus jamaicensis) and possibly the hawthorn moth (Scythropia crataegella).

Gallery

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  Tree

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  Blossoms at the Botanical Garden KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany

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  At Vosseslag, Belgium

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  Pink blossom

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  Ripe wild crab apples (Malus sylvestris)

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  Close-up showing fruit and leaves (Southeast Michigan)

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  Fruit

See also

• List of Lepidoptera that feed on Malus

Notes

1. Stephan, B.R., Wagner, I. & Kleinschmit, J. (2003). "Wild apple and pear - Malus sylvestris/Pyrus pyraster" (PDF). EUFORGEN Technical guidelines of genetic conservation and use.
2. Velasco R., Zharkikh A., Affourtit J. et al., The genome of the domesticated apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) Nature Genetics, 2010, 42, 10, 833
3. Coart, E., Van Glabeke, S., De Loose, M., Larsen, A.S., Roldán-Ruiz, I. 2006. Chloroplast diversity in the genus Malus: new insights into the relationship between the European wild apple (Malus sylvestris (L.) Mill.) and the domesticated apple (Malus domestica Borkh.). Mol. Ecol. 15(8): 2171-82.

• M.H.A. Hoffman, List of names of woody plants, Applied Plant Research, Boskoop 2005.
• RHS dictionary of gardening, 1992

External links

• USDA Plants Profile for Malus sylvestris
• Jepson Manual (JM93) treatment of Malus sylvestris — introduced species in California.
• Topwalks.net: Plants of Spain, Malus sylvestris
• Malus sylvestris in the CalPhotos Photo Database, University of California, Berkeley
• EUFORGEN species page: Malus sylvestris. Information, distribution and related resources.