Malus sylvestris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malus sylvestris
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Rosids
Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Malus
Species: M. sylvestris
Binomial name
Malus sylvestris
(L.) Mill.
European Wild Apple flower at the Botanical Garden KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany
Ripe Wild Crab Apples (Malus sylvestris)
Close-up showing fruit and leaves (Southeast Michigan)

Malus sylvestris, the European crab apple, is a species of the genus Malus, native to Europe. Its scientific name means "forest apple", and the truly wild tree has thorns.

In the past, M. sylvestris was thought to be an important ancestor of the cultivated apples (M. domestica), but these have now been shown to have been originally derived from the central Asian species M. sieversii.[1] However, another recent DNA analysis[2] showed that M. sylvestris has contributed to the ancestry of modern M. domestica very significantly.

The study found that secondary introgression from other species of the Malus genus has greatly shaped the genome of M. domestica, with M. sylvestris being the largest contributor. It also found that current populations of M. domestica are more closely related to M. sylvestris than to M. sieversii. However in more pure strains of M. domestica the M. sieversii ancestry still predominates.

The flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated by insects. Its leaves are food of the caterpillars of the Twin-spotted Sphinx (Smerinthus jamaicensis) and possibly the Hawthorn Moth (Scythropia crataegella).


See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Velasco R., Zharkikh A., Affourtit J. et al., The genome of the domesticated apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.) Nature Genetics, 2010, 42, 10, 833
  2. ↑ Coart, E., Van Glabeke, S., De Loose, M., Larsen, A.S., Roldán-Ruiz, I. 2006. Chloroplast diversity in the genus Malus: new insights into the relationship between the European wild apple (Malus sylvestris (L.) Mill.) and the domesticated apple (Malus domestica Borkh.). Mol. Ecol. 15(8): 2171-82.
  • M.H.A. Hoffman, List of names of woody plants, Applied Plant Research, Boskoop 2005.
  • RHS dictionary of gardening, 1992

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.