Scottish Crab Apples Malus sylvestris of the Galloway Glens
Scotland’s native ‘forest apple’ is the scroggie: scroggie is a local Scot’s word for crab apple, wooded pasture and small wild woods.
The project for Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership (March 2022-2024) with South West Community Woodlands Trust managed by Jools Cox and Jen Stephenson.
Below is an illustrated map of the native crab apples that the project identified (click to open a larger version in a new window).
The project for Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership (March 2022-2024) with South West Community Woodlands Trust managed by Jools Cox and Jen Stephenson.
Below is an illustrated map of the native crab apples that the project identified (click to open a larger version in a new window).
The following map has the OS grid references for the identified native crab apples (again, click to open a larger version in a new window):
Wild Apple of the Galloway Glens - How and why did we start?
Galloway's traditional domestic orchards tend not to be ancient, our mild, damp climate produces domestic apples that are prone to rot, poor cropping and canker caused by the stress of wind and damp, therefore many cultivated domestic varieties do not have a long life. However, we do have our native crab apple tree Malus sylvestris - hardy, long lived, scrubby trees often found in ancient hedgerows, drove roads, in the middle of pasture on knowes, and in hedge remnants. In spring their shock of ragged branches burst into soft pink or white blossom; in autumn the ground below them is marbled with tiny green, yellow apples.
These golden orbs are hard and so tart that your mouth puckers, completely unsuitable for snacks but a delight to cooks, cider brewers, insects, animals, and the blossom a great pollinator for the domestic apple.
We believe these apples could play a very important role in the longevity and survival of our domestic apple varieties.
In 2017, two passionate crab apple enthusiasts, scientists from Perthshire, Rick Worrell and James Renny expressed an interest in collecting a few crab apple leaves from Galloway to DNA test them to see how native they really were. This was part of a Scotland-wide survey, to distinguish true native trees from those that have been cross pollinated by insects from domestic apples. South West Community Woodlands Trust ‘Orchard and Wild Harvest Project,’ and Dr Mary Anne Smyth, sent out emails and within a month we had volunteers who collected over 50 samples from the region.
In February 2018, Rick and James returned to Galloway with the interesting and exciting results. The DNA analysis (by Markus Ruhsam at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) showed that most (more than 75%) of the Galloway crab apple samples were native Scottish forest apples. This threw up lots of questions, how long have they been here, why have they not hybridised like most others in the UK, how are they distributed, what are their favoured locations? Could Galloway be a hotspot for native pure crab apples? What do we do with this knowledge and how do we proceed? Lots of questions had to be answered and the data analysis expanded.
In 2021 the Darwin Tree of Life project was launched which eventually aims to sequence the genome of all 60,000 species of life in Britain and Ireland. 25 apples including the crab apple had their genetic ‘blueprint’ sequenced by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. It was time for a local project to identify our local native crab apples and preserve the knowledge and the seeds for the future.
For our project we were not interested in trees in gardens, nor did we want samples from trees likely to be pollinated by insects that may have been foraging on domestic apples thereby creating hybrids. We needed samples from remote trees with the characteristics of the wild native.
In March 2022 the project stepped up a gear with £5,000 funding from Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership. Jools Cox and Jenny Stephenson of South West Community Woodlands Trust undertook development of the project to encompass the community, education, cultural heritage, food futures, climate change, social history and wellbeing.
There were so many aspects of local crab apples to be explored each question leading to another; the first thing was identification, then collection of leaves in the summer and further DNA testing.
In early July 2022 we asked volunteers to collect a leaf from trees in their location that they thought may be native. Trees with small glossy leaves, not much, if any, down on the underside, short stems and sometimes thorny branches. The location of the tree was recorded by OS grid reference. The volunteer citizen scientists put the leaves in plastic bags with silica gel, labelled with location and sent them for genotype/DNA analysis by Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden scientist Markus Ruhsam. The results are in and are very exciting. Out of the 113 samples tested 92 were definitely native Malus sylvestris: 81% of our samples. A very high propensity.
March 2023 We have had interest from Gayle Volk USDA who would like seeds for their seedbank, and Nick Howard in the Netherlands who wants leaf samples of our natives for a genetic mapping of crab apples in Europe.
All results and a pictorial map will be put on the website in due course, along with walks and cycle routes to see the trees.
These golden orbs are hard and so tart that your mouth puckers, completely unsuitable for snacks but a delight to cooks, cider brewers, insects, animals, and the blossom a great pollinator for the domestic apple.
We believe these apples could play a very important role in the longevity and survival of our domestic apple varieties.
In 2017, two passionate crab apple enthusiasts, scientists from Perthshire, Rick Worrell and James Renny expressed an interest in collecting a few crab apple leaves from Galloway to DNA test them to see how native they really were. This was part of a Scotland-wide survey, to distinguish true native trees from those that have been cross pollinated by insects from domestic apples. South West Community Woodlands Trust ‘Orchard and Wild Harvest Project,’ and Dr Mary Anne Smyth, sent out emails and within a month we had volunteers who collected over 50 samples from the region.
In February 2018, Rick and James returned to Galloway with the interesting and exciting results. The DNA analysis (by Markus Ruhsam at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) showed that most (more than 75%) of the Galloway crab apple samples were native Scottish forest apples. This threw up lots of questions, how long have they been here, why have they not hybridised like most others in the UK, how are they distributed, what are their favoured locations? Could Galloway be a hotspot for native pure crab apples? What do we do with this knowledge and how do we proceed? Lots of questions had to be answered and the data analysis expanded.
In 2021 the Darwin Tree of Life project was launched which eventually aims to sequence the genome of all 60,000 species of life in Britain and Ireland. 25 apples including the crab apple had their genetic ‘blueprint’ sequenced by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. It was time for a local project to identify our local native crab apples and preserve the knowledge and the seeds for the future.
For our project we were not interested in trees in gardens, nor did we want samples from trees likely to be pollinated by insects that may have been foraging on domestic apples thereby creating hybrids. We needed samples from remote trees with the characteristics of the wild native.
In March 2022 the project stepped up a gear with £5,000 funding from Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership. Jools Cox and Jenny Stephenson of South West Community Woodlands Trust undertook development of the project to encompass the community, education, cultural heritage, food futures, climate change, social history and wellbeing.
There were so many aspects of local crab apples to be explored each question leading to another; the first thing was identification, then collection of leaves in the summer and further DNA testing.
In early July 2022 we asked volunteers to collect a leaf from trees in their location that they thought may be native. Trees with small glossy leaves, not much, if any, down on the underside, short stems and sometimes thorny branches. The location of the tree was recorded by OS grid reference. The volunteer citizen scientists put the leaves in plastic bags with silica gel, labelled with location and sent them for genotype/DNA analysis by Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden scientist Markus Ruhsam. The results are in and are very exciting. Out of the 113 samples tested 92 were definitely native Malus sylvestris: 81% of our samples. A very high propensity.
March 2023 We have had interest from Gayle Volk USDA who would like seeds for their seedbank, and Nick Howard in the Netherlands who wants leaf samples of our natives for a genetic mapping of crab apples in Europe.
All results and a pictorial map will be put on the website in due course, along with walks and cycle routes to see the trees.
