Tree Type: Cooking/Baking/Fresh Eating
Harvesting Date: Late September
Location: Salem Twp, MI (F)
Approximate Tree Age: 30 years
Tree Status: Chance seedling, likely
Possible Tree Varieties: Probably a crab cross, due to its long stem and small size, but has a delightfully conventional flavor.
Fruit size: Small, 2"
Shape: Classic
Fruit color: Nearly white, with neon pink spotting and blush
Skin: Medium-thick but easy to eat
Flesh: White, dense and fine grained, alluding to good qualities as a baking apple (hence pippin)
Additional notes on appearance: Its small size and unconventional coloration mean this one may be difficult to market as an eating apple, but I'm willing to give it a shot since the flavor and texture are superior.
Taste: Sweet spring honey with light florals
Texture: Crunchy, breaking from the teeth
Additional notes on taste: The strong floral notes of honey marked this apple as one to be pursued. Its subtle, difficult to describe, flavors make it a politely complex apple, and it manages to be uncloyingly sweet when ripe.
Disease/Pest notes: This is another tree in sore shape. It grows along a road that gets occasionally brush-hogged by the county, so unless it is marked and protected (rebar and signage, anyone?) it may continue to be damaged by the big machinery they bring through once a year. It has disease typical of the other feral apples in the area: sooty apple spot, scab, insect damage and flyspecking, though the fungal diseases are mysteriously less severe on this tree than on others nearby.
