MALUS SYLVESTRIS
English: Crab apple / Wild apple
Spanish: manzano silvestre Estonian: mets-õunapuu Portuguese: macieira-brava
A tree with height from 3 to 8 meters. Bark colour is brown. Often appears more like a bush than a tree. Has thorns. The tree is rather rare but native to most European countries.
Turkish: vahşi elma ağacı
Catalan: pomera silvestre europea
Flowers Regular( actinomorphic), large, fragrant. Calyx-lobes five, narrowtriangular, sharp-pointed, hairy in the inner surface. Petals five, inside white, outside pink, with rounded tip. Carpels three to five, fused. Inflorescence an umbellike cluster of two to six flowers.
Leaves Borne on thorn-tipped short shoots. Long-stalked, hairless or sometimes hairy when young, blade 3 – 8 cm( 1.2 – 3.1 in.), ovate with a tapering tip, toothed.
Fruit The stone fruit( apple), which is very hard. Small, 1 – 2 cm, sour, green pome. Dark brown and glossy, oval, flattened seeds within a capsule surrounded by the enlarged, fleshy receptacle.
Authors: Holger Ojaküla, Jürgen Aavik