Malus

The domesticated orchard apple — a deciduous Rosaceae tree grown for its showy, edible fruit and fragrant April blossom of five white-to-pink petals around a ring of yellow stamens. Not native to North America (the genus Malus spans Europe, Asia, and North America, but the cultivated apple is an Old World hybrid lineage). Almost all varieties are self-incompatible: a second, different apple cultivar blooming at the same time must be nearby for fruit to set, and trees are grown on dwarf, semi-dwarf, or standard rootstocks that decide final size.

A small, often crooked-trunked native crabapple of eastern North America, grown for fragrant May blossoms — cymes of 2-6 flowers that open pink and fade to white. The yellow-green, sour pomes that follow are too tart to eat fresh but make good preserves and cider, and they feed birds and mammals into fall. Thorny crabapple thickets give cover and nesting sites; the species is highly susceptible to cedar-apple rust and should be kept well away from eastern red cedar.