Crab Apple
Tree
The wild ancestor of the orchard apple — a small, often thorny tree with pink-white spring blossom and hard, sour little apples that feed birds and mammals in autumn.
💡 Fun Facts
- The crab apple is the wild ancestor of all the juicy eating apples we grow in orchards today.
- Its little apples are so sharp and sour that the word 'crabby', meaning grumpy, may come from their taste.
- In spring it is smothered in pink-and-white blossom; in autumn its windfall fruit feeds birds, badgers and foxes.
📅 Through the Year
- Leaf-out:April
- Flowering:April to May
- Fruiting:September to October
- Leaf fall:October to November