Crab Apple

Long before the sweet dessert apple was bred up from it, Malus sylvestris grew wild through the hedgerows of Europe, its small, sour fruit gathered each autumn for jellies, verjuice, and a sharp cider called crab wine. Country folk pressed the tart juice into a household remedy for coughs and sore throats, and simmered the bark into a bitter decoction traditionally used to ease fevers and settle an unsettled stomach. The blossom, foaming pink and white over hedgerows every May, became so bound up with courtship and orchards that it lent its name to Glastonbury's old title, the Isle of Avalon, meaning isle of apples. Even the wood, dense and fine grained, was prized by carvers and turners for small tools and mallet heads.