As you can see, our crab apples are appearing in profusion, but they seem smaller than usual – more like berries than apples. Perhaps it’s the drought, or it’s too early, or it’s my imagination. Nonetheless, they’re a welcome visual addition to the dissipating garden. I should emphasize “visual”; these fruits are retchingly bitter. However, the red squirrels are eating them already.
There seem to be two theories as to why these apples were named “crab.” One is that they have a “crabbed” (i.e., disagreeable, nasty) taste. The other is that the name derives from the old Norse/Scottish/Swedish words for wild apple that sound like “crab.”
As it happens, our crab apple trees and many others are neither wild nor European; they’re ornamental, beautifully-blossoming, cultivated trees that originated in Asia. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on September 21, 2025.)