Red is the berry

[muckefuck]

An image from my stroll through the park with monshu last Sunday:



I'm not really sure what this is. Although they look like berries, the fruits are actually quite firm, so they're actually pomes. They're the right size to be haws, but the tree has no thorns. Moreover, notice the shape of the leaves: They're not serrated at all. So I suspect we're really dealing with some species of crabapple despite the small size.

This was in the eastern part, where the trees were pretty blah. I wanted to drag him down to the point to photograph some of the prettier ones, but the light wasn't great and he wanted to get back to his pot roast.

Comments

[areia.livejournal.com]

Some Google image searching came up with this link. I somehow always thought crabapples were bigger than that, closer in size to walnuts.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the image that convinced me crabapples could be that size. I've always thought of them as larger, too, but I didn't really learn to distinguish various Maloideae species until relatively recently. It's a pain because there are so many cultivars and natural hybrids; my guide to trees of the Eastern US basically throws up its hands when it comes to the hawthorn genus (Crataegus), saying it's difficult even for trained botanists to tell individual species apart.