ROSE FAMILY 



Pistil. — Of five carpels inserted in the bottom of the calyx tube 

 and united into an inferior ovary; styles five; stigma capitate; 

 ovules two in each cell. 



Fruit. — Pome or apple ripening in October. Depressed-globular, 

 an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, crovvnecl with calyx lobes 

 and remnant of filaments ; yellow green, delightfully fragrant, sur- 

 face sometimes wa.\y. Flesh white, delicate and charged with ma- 

 lic acid. Seeds two or, by abortion, one in each cell, chestnut 

 brown shining; cutyledons fleshy. 



As tl e .ipple tree among the trees of tlie wood, 

 So i£ my beloved among the sons. 



— Song of Solomon. 



Kalm, who was one of the tweh'e men whom Linnosus cahed his apostles and 

 sent forth to explore the vegetable world, writes thus from America : 



" Crab-trees are a species of wild apple-trees, which grow in the w^oods and 

 glades, but especially on little hilluclcs, near rivers. In Xcw Jersey the tree is 

 rather scarce ; but in Pennsylvania it is plentiful. Some people had planted a 

 single tree of this Ivind near their iiouses on account of the fine smells which its 

 flowers afford. It had begun to open some of its flowers about a day or two 

 ago ; however, most ot them were not yet open. They are exactly like the blos- 

 soins of the common apple-trees except that the color is a little more reddish in 

 the Crab-trees ; though some kinds of tiie cultivated trees have flowers which 

 are very near as red ; but the smell distinguishes them plainly ; for the wild 

 trees have a very pleasant smell, somewhat like the ras]3berry. 



''The apples, or crabs, are small, sour and unfit for anything but to make vine- 

 gar of They lie under the trees all winter and acquire a yellow color. They 

 seldom begin to rot before spring comes on." 



When man emerges into history he has the apple in his 

 hand and the dog by his side. We have no reason to believe 

 that the European or Asiatic forbear from which the apple 

 of civilization is descended was any less harsh in taste or any 

 larger in size than our own crab. Indeed, were all the apples 

 of civilization swept out of e.xistence tliey could doubtless be 

 regained by the cultivation of our native tree. As it is, it 

 stands in all its wild and untrained beauty, its greatest charm 

 lying, as Kalm clearly apprehended, in its rose-colored blos- 

 soms, exquisite in tint and delicious in fragrance. Its flow- 

 ering time is ten days to two weeks later than that of the 

 domestic apple, and its fragrant fruit clings to the branches 

 on clustered stems long after the leaves have fallen. 



I.-4 



