365 Urban Species. #120: Flowering Crabapple

[urbpan]

Urban species #120: Flowering crabapple Malus x purpurea

Cherry blossoms get all the good press, but there are other flowering trees in the city. Hybrid varieties of apple have been developed to produce sprays of white or pink flowers that rival their close relatives, the cherries. Crabapples can be distinguished from cherries from their bark: cherries have smooth bark with horizontal dashes (technically called lenticels), while apple trees have rough, flaky bark. Apples and cherries both produce flowers in spring and (more famously) edible fruit in fall; fruit bearing trees such as these provide food for birds such as robins and cedar waxwings, and mammals like squirrels and raccoons.

Comments

[artemii.livejournal.com]

given how many pollinators buzzed around the crabapple in my ex-garden, i'd say the flowers are also a superb source of food! :)


by the way, this year i've been noticing a marked increase in sand cherries from recent years. have you as well? i guess maybe they became a hot woody plant trend a few years ago...

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I confess I don't know sand cherry, nor any other cherry tree, partly by choice. I started researching them last year and found them to be totally baffling. If I can verify a wild black cherry in the city I'll do an entry on them, but otherwise they are too confusing: too many species, too many varieties within species, and they don't even have the good sense to confine the Genus to cherries! Plums are in there, too.

Please tell me about sand cherries.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

yes, you're not alone! they confuse me too.

this is the one i've been seeing a lot this year (they're blooming right now in camberville):

Purpleleaf Sand Cherry Prunus x cistena

http://www.naz.edu:9000/~treewalk/north_tree_walk/prunuscistena/index.htm
http://www.mnpower.com/treebook/fact86.html
http://www.naturehills.com/new/product/shrubs_productdetails.aspx?proname=Purpleleaf+Sandcherry