A parking lot at my work has about 100+ crabapple trees but this one is not like the others. The PictureThis app identified it as Malus fusca.
I tried one and it tasted very sweet and then mildly astringent. The reds nearby are all just mildly sweet and then heavily astringent.
It does look like malus fusca but the flavor is surprising. All the malus fusca that I have tasted have been sour with no astringency.
Could it be Malus transitoria instead?
You appear to have found Malus transitoria (a common landscape tree). The fruit on M. fusca would be more oblong and is notable for its very tart flavor.
https://landscapeplants.oregonstate.edu/plants/malus-transitoria-golden-raindrops
Oh. I want that one as a very late season pollinator. One of the better crabs for that.
There was a flower in bloom on one of branches that I failed to get a photo of, so definitely it is a late pollinator.
The leaves looked a lot like Malus fusca but after looking at your suggestion I think you are correct. Iāve never seen an apple tree with multi-lobed leaves so I just went with what PictureThis suggested it was after looking at the other photos it had of it.
I have changed the title of the post too because it is a horrible start to a post about Malus fuscaā¦
Is the flesh on this yellow too? I was thinking it would be awesome to combine genes for yellow flesh with genes for red flesh because I suspect they occur on different parts of the genome and would be in addition to each other rather than offspring just inheriting one or the other. Could you imagine how tropical the apple would look when itās cut to reveal swirled yellow and deep orange (where the red pigment overlays the yellow)? The novel combination of pigments would likely unlock a new flavor profile in apples (since pigments can affect flavor).
I will grab a few next week when I am in the office and cut them open and see what color the flesh is.
I had never noticed that malus fusca had yellow flesh so I cut one open just now to confirm.
Bastian Orange Crab has yellow or orange flesh and is a lot bigger. It is self sterile and I assume it only has a single dose of a yellow flesh gene so it would be fun to cross with a red fleshed apple. Trailman is also yellow (and looks very similar but ripens earlier) so if they are interfertile crossing them would be a way to find out if they they are heterozygous for a yellow flesh gene
M. fusca often has a greenish-yellow flesh, but Iām thinking it would be fun to use something with more intense yellow coloration. The citrusy tasting crabapple I had at the tasting event has a really deep yellow interior color and is already the size of very plump cherries. If I get bloom overlap with it and my āPendragonā (red flesh type) Iāll try crossing them. The āPendragonā has very floral tasting fruit which I think might combine well with the citrusy notes. Crossing a yellow flesh to a more berry flavored red flesh type would be cool too.
I just looked up āBastian Orange Crabā and it sounds cool. Descriptions of its interior color sound promising, but the actual picture provided by its namesake really doesnāt show much internal pigmentation. I am not sure I would even call it yellow flesh, let alone orange flesh from that pictureā¦ Bastian Orange Crab
these people say that the red striped apple is not Bastianās orange fleshed crab.
while weāre on the subject āapricot appleā and āpeach melbaā are two other orange apples.
Iām referring to pictures provided by Jim Bastian, the originator of the variety. Iām guessing that he hadnāt ever seen a truly yellow flesh apple, so to him, the off white color of his crab seemed to be yellow. It also seems to have a bit of water core, which imparts a translucence to the affected areas. If I had never seen a truly yellow flesh apple, I might have been willing to accept the description that his crab was yellow fleshed.
I tasted a few more and it was still very sweet but then it was a little sour before the astringency kicked in, so it is probably a standard flavor profile for its species. I chased it with a swig of grapefruit carbonated water and it was like drinking a sweet-tart candy.
Check out Clarkās post here featuring the orange flesh Fatboy:
That āFat Boyā is a beautiful looking crabapple. It looks just a little bit bigger than the one I have with the same flesh color. I may have missed it, but I couldnāt find anything in the thread about what its flavor profile, texture or storage life is.
@jeremybyington @JohannsGarden
The flavor of fatboy is impressive. It tastes very good to me. Not at all what i expected. i was bracing for a typical crabapple flavor. I cant tell you how long it keeps or anything else about it at this point. @39thparallel may be able to tell you more than i can.
Are the fruits of āButterballā primarily sharp/tart tasting? By the looks of it, I would guest it shares a fair amount of DNA with a crabapple Iāve already been growing. My variety is much more compact growing than the online pictures I see of āButterballā, but the fruit look almost the same. It tastes a lot like if a kumquat was a crabapple.
I would not say itās overly tart. It seems to have some tannins. one of my friends compared it to a Loquatās flavor. I donāt know much about its origins other then it was imported from Germany in the 80ās.
