An ancestor of the cultivated apple, the crab applis is a common thing to find in woods, heaths and hedgerows.

It has small, hard fruit you can forage for in August. They will be too tart to eat raw but are great in jams and jellies. You could also use to infuse vodka or gin with lots of caster sugar for a golden licquer.

A symbol of fertility and a forager’s delight. Crab apple trees are associated with love and marriage and its small, hard fruits make an exquisite, jewel-coloured jelly.

One of the ancestors of the cultivated apple (of which there are more than 6,000 varieties), it can live to up to 100 years. Mature trees grow to around 10m in height. They have an irregular, rounded shape and a wide, spreading canopy. With greyish brown, flecked bark, trees can become quite gnarled and twisted, especially when exposed, and the twigs often develop spines. This ‘crabbed’ appearance may have influenced its common name, ‘crab apple’. The crab apple is one of the few host trees to the parasitic mistletoe, Viscum album, and trees are often covered in lichens. 

Crab apples can vary enormously. Although they are the wild ancestors of our commercial apples (a species that varies enormously in its own right), many trees you come across in the wild have grown from domestic apples that have self-seeded, and either reverted to a wild form or crossed with true crabs. The closer they are to the parents, the larger and sweeter their fruit will be.

Source: Woodland Trust