wild crab apple

Photo: Stan Shebs — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Sour and slightly bitter as it first ripens, mellowing to mildly sweet with a lingering bitter aftertaste when fully ripe — the fruits that ripen and dry on the shrub are the sweetest and most palatable, and good for jelly or spiced like preserved crabapples.

Hardiness

Zone 4–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Dense rounded shrub 0.5–2 m, rarely to 3 m

Light

Full sun (open dry slopes)

Soil pH

6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)

Environment

Semi-arid

Native range

Interior western North America — Oregon and eastern California east through Idaho, Nevada and Utah to Colorado and New Mexico, on dry sagebrush slopes, pinyon-juniper woodland and open ridges between about 1,200 and 2,500 m. The only species in its genus.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

Slow

Spacing

200 cm (79 in) apart — about 4 m² (43 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Narrow, spoon-shaped leaves 2–5 cm, untoothed and grey-green, crowded in tufts on short spurs — a distinctly un-rose-like look, and nothing else in the family here resembles it.

Root system

Deep and drought-adapted, with a strong taproot reaching well below the sagebrush root zone. Established plants resent disturbance and transplant badly.

Fruit description

A small yellow to purplish-red pome 8–15 mm holding one or two large seeds, ripening in early summer. Sour and rather bitter as it colours, sweetening as it dries on the bush — the shrivelled fruit is the best eating, and the fresh fruit makes a good sharp jelly.

Propagation

Seed after about three months of cold stratification; germination is erratic. Cuttings are difficult and the plant is rarely offered in the trade.

Pollination

Self-fertile

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.