To be considered a good ornamental, a tree or shrub must possess several outstanding qualities. These may vary somewhat but, generally, they include beautiful flowers, attractive fruits, good foliage, hardiness where this is essential, ability to withstand attacks by insect pests and plant diseases, and ease of culture.
This does not mean that every good ornamental is expected to have all those features. Lilacs, for instance, are beautiful in flower, but they have no attractive fruits; nevertheless, they are among the best ornamentals.
To find all the qualities mentioned in one plant seems almost impossible. Yet, we do find them in the group of trees and shrubs commonly known as flowering or ornamental crab apples.
Community Plantings
The demand for these plants was never very great until some 20 years or so ago when interest in them suddenly began to grow. That interest has continued steadily; now not only individual gardeners, but whole communities like Kankakee, Illinois, Spencer, Iowa, and several others are planting flowering crabs.
They are using these trees in large numbers and many varieties in parks and along highways.
Outstanding Collections
Even so, there are still many people who have never realized how beautiful a flowering crabapple is in the Spring when it is covered with a blanket of flowers, or in the Fall when the branches are loaded with the small, colored fruits. No better advice can be given than to visit some of the large collections.
Truly it is worth a trip to see the crab apples when they are in bloom or fruit in the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, the Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois, the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Missouri, the New York Botanical Garden, New York, New York,
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, the public parks in Rochester, New York, and the collections at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and Des Moines, Iowa. There are others besides.
The Des Moines Collection Grows
For nearly 25 years I have been associated with the Des Moines collection. In this relatively short period, it has become one of the largest in the world. This began modestly with varieties that could be purchased from nurseries.
The plantings were soon extended for various reasons. For one thing, it was necessary that all these trees were true to name and correctly labeled so that the public could see what a Scheidecker crab looked like, how an Arnold crab looked in full bloom or fruit, and how all these fine ornamentals could be used in the home grounds.
Plants and propagating material were obtained from various sources for checking.
An Absorbing Hobby
Searching for new plants and studying and checking descriptions became an absorbing hobby, and still is. But no one would have thought of the amount of work involved. A herbarium was started; it now contains nearly 1000 sheets with specimens of over 300 species, forms, varieties, and hybrids.
This herbarium is of incalculable value in the process of identification.
Notes were made from the very beginning of flowers, time of flowering, fruits, leaves, the habit of growth, and, in a minor way, of the occurrence of diseases, such as blight and apple scab. The notes on flowers and fruits with sketches of both were finally compiled and now form a collection of rather complete and detailed descriptions of nearly 300 different kinds.
Seeds for Identification
Lately, it has occurred to me that not only leaves, flowers, and fruits are valuable for identification purposes, but seeds are no less important. To be sure, it is not always easy or even possible to establish the identity of a crab apple by the seeds alone.
But, neither is identification by leaves alone, flowers alone, or fruits alone, possible in all cases. I have seen leaves of two different kinds of trees so similar that they looked as if they were from the same plant. The seeds, however, were so dissimilar that confusing the two was out of the question.
This seed study is interesting, and may throw light where there was darkness or confusion before.
New Varieties
Naturally, there is always the wish to see new and better varieties. Again, the past 20 years have probably produced more new varieties than the preceding 100 years. A few of the best are Katherine, which originated in Rochester, a many-branched, shrub-like crab with an abundance of pale pink to white double blossoms and tiny yellow and red fruits; Dorothea, from the Arnold Arboretum, with somewhat similar but deeper tinted flowers and yellow fruits.
Van Eseltine
Van Eseltine, which originated in Geneva, New York, is one of the most beautiful of all. It simply puzzles me that this remarkably lovely crab apple has remained so rare. It is a hybrid of the Chinese double crab, but with deeper and larger blossoms and red instead of yellow fruits.
Among the new Canadian hybrids, Kingsmere and Makamik rank high. The first is a small tree with a broad, rounded head, with light purplish-pink or lavender-pink flowers and rather large purple fruits; the second is more upright in habit, with purplish-red blossoms and bright red fruits.
New Crimson Brilliant
A year ago one of my seedlings, a purple-leaved hybrid, with partly, semi-double, red flowers, was patented and introduced under the name Crimson Brilliant. Two others will be offered next year; one is Irene and the other is Purple Wave. The latter is outstanding for its large, extremely dark purple leaves.
It, too, has bright red, but single flowers. Irene also has single red or purple-red blossoms, but slightly lighter, tinted foliage; it resembles a dwarf Jay Darling crab, and is more floriferous.
The Old Standbys
What will happen to all the old standbys? Will they be displaced by the newer hybrids and disappear? Certainly not. Nothing will happen to the fine old garden varieties that have shown their worth.
Foremost among these are Arnold crab and the Japanese flowering crab, both with rose red buds, pale pink to white flowers, and small yellow fruits, and Midget crab, the earliest, pure pink, with larger yellow fruits.
Another excellent variety is the Chinese double crab. This is one of the oldest of all, but despite that, it is not as well known as it deserves. Its botanical name is Malus spectabilis, not to be confused with Malus spectabilis alba plena, a name given to a tree that is probably not a Chinese crab at all, but a double form of a wild apple.
The true Chinese has double, pale rose to white flowers on rather long thin stems and yellow fruits that rarely exceed one inch in diameter. The other has double white flowers on much shorter stems, and the fruits are much larger, yellow and red or entirely red.
The Sargent Crab
The low-growing Sargent crab and the equally dwarf Pink-bud Sargent are two kinds that will stay with us. There is nothing in sight that will push them into the discard. The difference between these two is principally in the buds, the Sargent form has pure white buds. The open flowers of both are pure white, and the pea-sized fruits are purple and red.
The Jay Darling Crab
Finally, I should mention the Jay Darling crab which is one of our best-beloved trees. It is probably the same as Eley crab, but with fruit altogether different from the typical Eley fruit. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, is one of the rare places in the United States that can boast of having the Eley crab that produces the rather small, long egg-shaped fruits as they should be.
Elsewhere the fruits are usually larger, nearly round, or even oblate. No one seems to know the reason for that behavior. Soil and climate may be responsible.
44659 by Arie F. Den Boer