Malus baccata (L.) Borkh.

This is a beautiful, ornamental tree grown for its showy flowers and red or yellow fruit. It is commonly used as stock to graft Malus pumila and M. asiatica in N and NE China.

Trees to 10–14 m tall, with arching or pendulous branches. Branchlets reddish brown, terete, glabrous; buds reddish brown, ovoid, scales tomentose at margin. Stipules caducous, lanceolate, ca. 3 mm, membranous, margin entire or with sparse glandular teeth, apex acuminate; petiole 2–5 cm, puberulous, with few glands when young, glabrescent; leaf blade elliptic or ovate, 3–8 × 2–3.5 cm, glabrous or slightly puberulous when young, base cuneate or rounded, margin serrate, apex acuminate, rarely caudate-acuminate. Corymb at apices of branchlets, umbel-like, 5–7 cm in diam., 4–6-flowered; bracts caducous, linear-lanceolate, membranous, glabrous, margin glandular denticulate, apex acuminate. Pedicel 1.5–4 cm, slender, glabrous. Flowers 3–3.5 cm in diam. Hypanthium campanulate, glabrous. Sepals lanceolate, 5–7 mm, longer than hypanthium, abaxially glabrous, adaxially tomentose, margin entire, apex long acuminate. Petals white, obovate, 2–2.5 cm, base shortly clawed, apex obtuse-rounded. Stamens 15–20, unequal, ca. 1/2 as long as petals. Ovary 5- or 4-loculed, with 2 ovules per locule; styles 5 or 4, longer than stamens, densely villous basally. Pome red or yellow, subglobose, 8–10 mm in diam., with an obscure scar at apex; fruiting pedicel 3–4 cm, glabrous; sepals caducous. Fl. Apr–Jun, fr. Sep–Oct. 2n = 34*.

Himalaya (Kashmir to Bhutan), Assam, Tibet, Mongolia, Siberia, China. Japan.

Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Xizang [Bhutan, India, Kashmir, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia (Siberia)].

1800-3600 m

Mixed forests on slopes, among shrubs in valleys; sea level to 1500 m.

Pyrus baccata Linnaeus, Mant. Pl. 75. 1767; Malus baccata f. gracilis Rehder; M. baccata var. sibirica (Maximowicz) C. K. Schneider; M. sibirica Borkhausen.