Malus domestica Borkh., Cultivated Apple

Introduction, archaeophyte, occasional.

1902; Praeger, R.Ll.; Co Fermanagh.

February to September.

Found in woods, including those on lakeshores, hedgerows and waysides. Sometimes this small tree is either deliberately planted in hedges, bird-sown or probably extremely rarely established from seeds in discarded apple cores. The balance between these three sources is, as usual in such circumstances, absolutely impossible to unravel. The cultivated apple is very widely and apparently randomly scattered throughout the whole of Fermanagh. As the tetrad map shows, it has been recorded in 66 very widely scattered tetrads (12.5%), making it more than twice as frequent as the native Malus sylvestris (Crab Apple) in the county although, as noted under that taxon, the two are often very difficult or impossible to accurately distinguish.

It is important to remember that apples in the 'wild', even if they were derived from seed of perfectly (or nowadays reasonably) edible cultivated forms, often revert and bear small, yellow, sour fruit (New Flora of the BI). For this reason it is suspected that at least some of the records of Crab Apple probably belong here.