I went to point-no-point and picked some Oregon crabapple to use as a hedge. My question is that the largest I found were only 16mm long while one source mentioned that they can be up to 20mm long. Has anyone seen larger apples on this species and where did they find them?
I’ve seen them growing in a local park here in West Seattle, but rarely much more than 1cm fruit. The trees here are in part shade, though, and I haven’t seen any growing in full sun in fertile soil, so maybe these aren’t the best examples. I see that the UW arboretum describes the fruit as “1-1.6cm long,” and they are a pretty reliable source of information:
The only time I’ve tasted the fruit, they were unpleasantly sour. Are you planning to eat them? I guess they probably make decent jelly at least.
With stuff like these you are looking at a species, not an specific variety. As a matter of fact you could give this one a name to distinguish it from all the other malus fusca growing out there.
Nanking cherries in the wild are the same, a species. The ones i get at a local park are smaller but sweeter than the larger more acidic ones i find at another spot. My daughter likes and recognize the “park” variety every time i bring a bunch home.
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