WILD CRABAPPLE 



Malus ioensis ( Wood ) Britt. 



April - May April rain drips from the purple-black twigs of the 



Roadsides, woods wild crab apple trees, pearls the pink buds and the 



crisp, spicy flowers, mats the petals, studs the new 

 grey-gi-een leaves. The fragrance of the wild crab apple flowers fills the 

 moist, soft air, a Dianthus-like fragTance, a perfume which is peculiarly 

 part of the Illinois country when it is spring and the whole tremulous 

 pattern of growth unfolds in an April rain. 



The white-throated sparrows pipe in the wet leaves beneath the pink- 

 flowered trees. A wood thrush in a tree top offers a soulful carol to the 

 grey sky. Insects are quiescent in the rain, but a keen-eyed little kinglet 

 flits about busily hunting for minute gnats. And the fragrance of the 

 pink flowers is one with the April song and movement and color. 



The wild crab apple trees are low and gnarled and spiny. They make 

 a thicket at the edge of the woods or along the road, low, not especially 

 conspicuous except when they put pink bouquets across the countryside. 

 Quickly, as the flowers go and the oval leaves mature, they assume their 

 uniform sjeen color of summer. And in the midst of the leaves little 

 green apples fonn. 



In September, in October, as the leaves fall and the polished stems 

 show again, there are yellow-green, sticky apples which have as unique a 

 fragrance as the flowers did in spring. The rich pungence of the wild 

 crab apples, like the smell of autumn leaves, is part of the Illinois 

 autumn. The apples are hard; they are exceedingly sour. They twirl 

 gently on their stems in the late autumn sunshine, then drop with small 

 thuds to lie mellowing on the ground. .Many lie there all winter long, 

 odorous under snow and leaves, and soften sufficiently in spring to be 

 pecked apart by newly arrived robins. 



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