apple identification please

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yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 12 11:08 pm Post subject:

I knew there was something weird . . . apart from the stem. In the horizontal slice, there's only 4 carpels. Not five as usual. Is that just a freak or are they all like that?

The closest I can see (in Taylors 'The Apples of England , 1948) is Bess Pool, but it doesn't seem to have the obvious lenticels of yours. In the book it says 'St Martin - Somewhat similar to Bess Pool' Could that be a cornish apple?

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 12 11:11 pm Post subject:
It might just be the angle it's cut at.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 12 11:19 pm Post subject:
Still hard to turn 5 into 4. Five's the magic number in apples. Maybe that one was only partially pollinated. Just picked one up at random from the ten brought into the sittingroom by the dogs this evening and experimented. As you go down the apple or at an angle, the divisions stay at 5 then increase into a star of fibres

Lorrainelovesplants

Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 6521
Location: Dordogne

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 12 9:26 am Post subject:
have chopped another - this one has 5, so the first one must have been a fluke! All the apples seem to have the funny stem swelling....

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 12 3:15 pm Post subject:
As Yummersetter says, the thick stem could be a clue, although on a very old tree the apples may no longer be true to type. That aside it has some resemblance to Cornish Aromatic (early 19th century).

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9717
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 12 3:20 pm Post subject:

SandraR wrote:

The Devon Quarreden is an old variety local to Devon and the West Country and an old favourite as it tolerated rain and wind.

The tree is upright - spreading moderatley vigourous and spur bearing.

Season late August to early September.

now i want one of those too *sigh*

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 12 8:52 pm Post subject:

Sorry, not Cornish Aro. That's the last tree to become ripe in my orchard and won't be ready till November, this year its still fairly green. It has a distinctive shape too, almost heart shaped, and is matt and more stripey.

What I keep thinking is that if its 60 years old, which looks possible to me, that's an era when people were very practical about food, not nostalgic, as rationing was happening or just finished, people knew real hunger - also nurseries didn't have the kind of range they have now. So I would have expected it to be something reliable, Ellison's Orange, or Laxton's Superb or Charles Ross, that kind of thing. Unless the folk at the manor were real apple nerds, I don't think they would have espaliered a Slapmacornishbuttock just for the fun of it.

Saying that, my grandfather did things like that with Somerset varieties in the 40s/50s - but he was an apple nerd

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 12 9:03 pm Post subject:

Quarrenden ( or as we call it Quarentine) is one of my favourites. We ate them as kids - its a petite apple, small as a tree and in the fruit, totally maroon coloured, quite flat. Crops early so doesn't keep,though hangs on the tree well, you polish it on your trouser leg till its really, really shiny before you eat it. It tastes delicious, strawberryish and juicy, best when just picked, early in the morning, with cold dew on it.

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 5:32 am Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

Interesting, ours are likely to be ripe any day now, and have plenty of red / orange flush. Also ours look like the ones on the National Fruit Collection photo, which doesn't sound like yours.

https://www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/images/apple/GBR030_1920020_FRS_NFC2009A_1.jpg

This is one of the difficulties of identifying apples!

Lorrainelovesplants

Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 6521
Location: Dordogne

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 6:27 am Post subject:
oooh, I seem to have started something.... Im going to send photos to a few other folk, and hopefully we will also stimulate some interest. Exciting, isnt it?

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9717
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 7:50 am Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

going to add it to my order.. irresistible to have a tree from Devon, that was introduced about the same time as our house was built.
And it sounds like a nice eater too!

SandraR

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 2346
Location: Devon

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 7:51 am Post subject:

Picked straight from the tree the quarrenden is lovely but quickly goes soft and 'woolly'. We were thinking of getting another for the orchard at the yard but they do need eating straight away so not sure if we really need another.

I do hope 'Lorraine's apple' is identified I find it fascinating. Very much a case of ruling out what it isn't at first, rather than what it is.

Sorry yummersetter. I didn't read all the posts before posting. CIG ....what yummersetter said only she said it better

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 9:28 am Post subject:
Always possible I'm wrong about the Cornish Aromatic, OP - Scotts apples were labelled approximately, sometimes. In which case we might have another mystery apple

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 12:14 pm Post subject:

yummersetter wrote:

Always possible I'm wrong about the Cornish Aromatic, OP - Scotts apples were labelled approximately, sometimes.

In which case we might have another mystery apple

I'm not convinced it is Cornish Aromatic, but it has some likeness to the NFC photos, and others I have taken - but nowhere near close enough to make it a confident ID. Also very old trees, with little new growth and probably a lot of disease, can produce atypical shapes and colours.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 12 12:35 pm Post subject:

Looking at the NFC pics, yes that's the same apple as mine. More pinched bottom than Lorraine's, I'd say

So heart shaped when its not upside down

It's interesting that yours ripens so much earlier, here's a pic of mine in Nov 2010, just beginning to be attacked by starlings

Still very unripe, this is a bad year, though. It's very variable, some flushed, some striped, some green. All with a thin long stem though.

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