Unusual apples.

[reggietheveggie]

Hello dears

Haven't been around much of late what with renovating the house and going back to long-distance lorry driving, but I'm still very much growing and foraging . At the moment, I'm parked-up for the night and on my way into the lorry park, I spotted what looked like a plum tree. I've just had a walk back to it and it's something I've never seen before. It turns out to be an apple tree but the apples are plum-coloured, a sort of of "plummy" maroony colour. The best bit though is when you bite into one. It tastes just like a normal apple, possibly a touch on the tart side, but the flesh is reddy-pink I've honestly never sen anything like this in my life. My OH says that the supermarkets are selling these as an "antique" variety?? It's obviously a wild tree as it's growing by the edge of the road on an industrial estate, I just wondered if anyone has any thoughts about it.....

Thanks in advance.

Martyn (your roving six-axled 44 ton forager )

[Shadylane]

Funny that cos on the side of the road on an industrial estate near us is something very similar. In fact I'm going to go and get some today. This ones even odder though cos half of the tree has normal green apples and the other half has these deep red/red flesh apples. (Must've been grafted or something I suppose) There's loads of the red uns though last year I think I only spotted one and we had more green uns.

[FB.]

Red-fleshed apples seem to be fashionable at the moment (for their novelty value) but they are not especially rare - the only rare bit is finding one that tastes as good as regular apples and has worthwhile disease resistance.
Many of the red-fleshed apples have crab apples in their ancestry. Sometimes these get pollinated by domestic apples which then gives an apple with half-way characteristics between crab and domestic.

A few minutes walk from my house is a self-sown apple which looks to be a hybrid of a red-fleshed and red-blossom crab crossed with a domestic apple. What I presume to be its mother (a red-flowered and small-red-fruited crab) lives about a hundred yards away, in the grounds of a school.
This seedling has blossom which is very dark pink bordering on red and fruits which reach about two inches. Unfortunately, in all but the dry seasons, many of the apples and leaves are covered in scab spots which are both unsightly and can cause the fruits to split and rot.

There have been modern releases of red-flesh apples - one called Redlove a year or two ago - but home growers are apparently finding that diseases scab and canker to be a problem, from what I hear.

Apples of the "Beauty of Bath" and "Discovery" family line can have streaks of red in the flesh but not full red flesh. They are generally more disease resistant and more flavoursome.
Also there are a few "Sops in Wine" varieties (several varieties with the same name causes much confusion) and the flesh has the same colour as bread dipped in red wine - hence the name.

Purplish/plum-coloured fruits can be found on the variety "Spartan" - here's a picture of one of my Spartan apples (although the flesh is mostly whitish with only an occasional red streak)
The second picture is typical of a properly-ripened Discovery apple, with some red streaks in the flesh - especially under the skin:

[StephenH]

on my way into the lorry park, I spotted what looked like a plum tree. I've just had a walk back to it and it's something I've never seen before. It turns out to be an apple tree but the apples are plum-coloured, a sort of of "plummy" maroony colour. The best bit though is when you bite into one. It tastes just like a normal apple, possibly a touch on the tart side, but the flesh is reddy-pink...

Bet it's Devonshire Quarrenden. It's very early - note that the link says it's ready in August - so that ties in with your apple. It can be very deep red all over. I used to have access to one. It's delicious.

[reggietheveggie]

Funny that cos on the side of the road on an industrial estate near us is something very similar.

It wouldn't happen to be an industrial estate near junction 1 of the M18 at Hellaby, by any chance?

[Shadylane]

Ha ha yes that's the one, oooh weird. I picked a load today - I thought they were rank. Really sour. Maybe it's too early but they came off easily. I like them a bit tart but to my taste they were really sour. Might have to cook with em