A valuable dessert apple of the first quality; in use from December to May.
The tree is of small habit of growth, but very hardy and an abundant bearer. It is well adapted for espalier training when worked on the paradise stock; and if grafted on the Pomme Paradis of the French, it may be grown in pots, in which it forms a beautiful and interesting object when laden with its beautiful fruit.
The bloom expands later than that of any other variety, and on that account is less liable to be injured by spring frosts, hence, according to Thompson, it has been called the Wise Apple.
This is not the Capendu of Duhamel, as quoted by Lindley and Downing; neither is it the Court-pendu of Forsyth and De Quintinye, that variety being the Fenouillet Rouge of Duhamel, see [No. 123]. The Courpendu of Miller is also a different apple from any of those just mentioned, and is distinguished by having a long and slender stalk, “so that the fruit is always hanging downwards.” The name of this variety is derived from Corps pendu translated by some Hanging Body, whereas that of the variety above described, is from Court pendu, signifying suspended short, the stalk being so short, that the fruit, sits, as it were, upon the branch. The name Capendu or Capendua, is mentioned by the earliest authors, but applied to different varieties of apples. It is met with in Ruellius, Tragus, Curtius, and Dalechamp, the latter considering it the Cestiana of Pliny. Curtius applies the name to a yellow apple, and so also does Ruellius; but Tragus considers it one of the varieties of Passe-pomme, he says, “Capendua magna sunt alba et dulcia, in quorum utero semina per maturitatem sonant, Ruellio Passipoma apellantur.” They are also mentioned by J. Bauhin, “Celeberrimum hoc pomi genus est totius Europæ, sic dicta, quòd ex curto admodum pendeant pediculo.”
86. COWARNE RED.—Knight.
- Identification and Figure.—Knight, [Pom. Heref.] t. 28.
Fruit, of a pretty good size, a little more long than broad, but narrow at the crown, in which appear a few obtuse and undefined plaits. Eye, small, with very short converging segments of the calyx. Stalk, hardly half an inch long, very stiff and straight. Skin, a small part of it pale gold on the shaded side, and round the base, but of a bright red over a great part, and where fully exposed to the sun, of an intense, deep, purplish crimson; there are numerous short streaks, which mark the shady part of the fruit.
Specific gravity of its juice 1069.
A cider apple, which takes its name from the parish of Cowarne, near Broomyard, in Herefordshire, where it was raised about the beginning of the last century.—Lindley.