Malus pumila (Paradise apple)

Description : Crab Apple, Malus pumila Mill. (syn. Pyrus malus L.) ; one of the UK’s most beautiful small native trees, es¬pecially when in flower or fruit; bark scaly and fissured; leaves scattered on the long shoots, clustered on the short shoots, nar¬rowly obovate, sharply serrate ; flowers 5-6 in a cluster (umbel) and appearing with the leaves at the top of a short shoot ; calyx-lobes pointed, woolly inside ; petals - pink outside, white inside; stamens about 20; anthers ovate, tipped by a gland ; ovary inferior ; styles 5, united in the lower part ; fruit (F, x almost globular, about 1 in. diam., green flushed with red, very acid (family Rosaceae).

During the day the flowers of the Crab Apple give off only a very slight odour of honey, but at night they possess an agreeable fragrance which attracts numerous night-flying insects. When the flower opens the erect stamens are crowded together in the middle, and their close, yellow anthers are usually well below the level of the five already mature stigmas. The latter are thus almost certain to receive pollen from other flowers carried by insects searching for the nectar, which is secreted inside the calyx-tube (receptacle). Cross-pollination, as in our garden apples, is necessary for a good crop of crab-apples. The tree grows apparently wild from about the Forth and Clyde areas southwards, and in many parts of Eire. Some trees have been reported up to 45 ft. high.