Leaves 4′—8′ long, ½′ wide when entire, or 4′ wide when pinnately divided, when they unfold covered below with hoary deciduous tomentum, at maturity dark green and lustrous above and yellow-green, glabrous or pubescent below, with an orange-colored midrib. Flowers in June and July, ⅛′—¼′ in diameter, in clusters varying from 4′—8′ across. Fruit ripens in August and September, 3/16′ long.
A bushy tree, rarely 30°—40° high, with a single straight trunk 8′—10′ in diameter, and slender branchlets at first pale orange color and coated with deciduous pubescence, becoming at the end of their first season bright red and lustrous; usually shrubby, with several tall stems, or in exposed situations a low bush. Bark ⅓′ thick, dark red-brown, and composed of numerous thin papery layers, forming after exfoliating long loose strips persistent on the stem. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, bright clear red faintly tinged with orange.
Distribution. Steep slopes of cañons in dry rocky soil; on the islands of Santa Catalina, Santa Cruz, San Clemente, Santa Rosa, California; most abundant and of its largest size on the northern shores of Santa Cruz; on Santa Catalina much smaller and rarely arborescent.
Now occasionally cultivated in California.
3. MALUS Hall. Apple.
Trees, with scaly bark, slender terete branchlets, small obtuse buds covered by imbricated scales, those of the inner ranks accrescent and marking the base of the branchlet with conspicuous ring-like scars, and fibrous roots. Leaves conduplicate in the bud in the American species, simple, often incisely lobed, especially those near the end of vigorous branchlets, petiolate, deciduous, the petioles in falling leaving narrow horizontal scars marked by the ends of three equidistant fibro-vascular bundles; stipules free from the petioles, filiform, early deciduous. Flowers in short terminal racemes, with filiform deciduous bracts and bractlets, on short lateral spur-like often spinescent branchlets; calyx-tube obconic, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, acuminate, becoming reflexed, persistent and erect on the fruit or deciduous; petals rounded at apex, contracted below into a stalk-like base, white, pink or rose color; stamens usually 20 in 3 series, those of the outer series opposite the petals; carpels 3—5, usually 5, alternate with the petals, united into an inferior ovary; styles united at base; ovules 2 in each cell, ascending; raphe dorsal; micropyle inferior. Fruit a pome with homogeneous flesh, and papery carpels joined at apex, free in the middle; seeds 2, or by abortion 1 in each cell, ovoid, acute, erect, without albumen; seed-coat cartilaginous, chestnut-brown and lustrous; embryo erect; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy; radicle short, inferior. Malus is confined to North America where nine species have been recognized, to western and southeastern Europe, and to central, southern, and eastern Asia. Of exotic species, Malus pumila Mill. of southeastern Europe and central Asia, the Apple-tree of orchards, has become widely naturalized in northeastern North America. Several of the species of eastern Asia and their hybrids are cultivated for their handsome flowers, or for their fruits, the Siberian Crabs of pomologists.
Malus is the classical name of the Apple-tree.
CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.
Calyx persistent on the green or rarely yellow fruit covered with a waxy exudation; leaves of vigorous shoots laterally lobed; anthers dark (Chloromeles). Leaves glabrous at maturity. Leaves on flowering branchlets, acute or acuminate, serrate. Leaves at the end of vigorous shoots distinctly lobed, those of flowering branchlets incisely serrate or lobed. Leaves subcordate, with the lowest pair of veins springing directly from the base, light green on the lower surface.1. [M. glabrata] (A). Leaves truncate or rounded at base, the lowest pair of veins at some distance from the base. Leaves glaucescent beneath, thickish at maturity.2. [M. glaucescens] (A, C). Leaves light green on the lower surface, thin.3. [M. coronaria] (A, C). Leaves at the end of vigorous shoots only slightly lobed, those of flowering branchlets serrate. Leaves oval-elliptic, acute; fruit much depressed, distinctly broader than high.4. [M. platycarpa] (A, C). Leaves lanceolate, acuminate, thin; fruit subglobose.5. [M. lancifolia.] Leaves on flowering branchlets usually rounded at apex, those at the end of vigorous shoots only slightly lobed; fruit subglobose.6. [M. angustifolia] (A, C). Leaves tomentose or villose at maturity, at least those of vigorous shoots, strongly veined. Calyx glabrous on the outer surface; leaves of flowering branchlets without lobes, glabrous or nearly so.7. [M. bracteata] (A, C). Calyx tomentose or pubescent on the outer surface; leaves usually incisely lobed, pubescent or tomentose beneath, rarely glabrous.8. [M. ioensis] (A, C). Calyx deciduous from the yellow or reddish fruit without a waxy exudation; leaves of vigorous shoots often 3-lobed at apex; anthers yellow (Sorbomalus).9. [M. fusca] (B, G).