Description: This is the cultivated or domesticated apple tree, common in commercial and private fruit orchards and gardens, but the map mainly ignores these cultivated trees and shows 'wild' trees - encountered as isolated trees which have probably grown spontaneously from seed in discarded apple cores. In some districts, however, domesticated apple trees are found in quantity in hedgerows where they appear to have been planted and many botanists included these in the compilation of the records database.

Crabtree or crab apple is considered native; the domesticated species is an introduction and very variable. Small-fruited variants of this species may have been identified as the crab tree (Malus sylvestris) by mistake, so that the map of that species should be treated with caution. Distinguishing these two closely-related species is not always easy: usually M. domestica has much hairier leaves than M. sylvestris and much larger fruits.

All names: Malus domestica Borkh.; Malus sylvestris ssp. mitis (Wallr.) Mansf.

Distribution Map from NBN: Malus domestica at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Malus domestica at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.