Wayland Weekly Flower – Blooming Pink Crabapple

A beautiful pink flowering crabapple along River Road.  If planted in an area where fruit cleanup is not an issue, the crabapple is a wonderful tree.  They are adaptable hardy trees that like sun, but can handle a little shade.  They provide spectacular flowers in the spring and food for wildlife in the winter.  They are a medium sized tree with a 50 plus year lifespan.

Crabapples, pears, and cherries are all members of the Rosaceae (rose) family.  One way to distinguish them is to look at the bark.  The bark of a cherry tree tends to have horizontal fissures; whereas, the bark of pear and crabapple trees have vertical fissures.   A pear tree has a white flower, so a pink flower could be a cherry or crabapple tree.  Looking more closely at the flower, one can see a difference between a cherry and a crabapple tree.  The flower of a cherry tree has a single style and its associated stigma to collect the pollen.  The crabapple flower, like the apple flower, has multiple styles leading down to the flower ovary.

Return here every week to warm up to a picture of flowers from somewhere in Wayland.  Perhaps learn a bit about flowers, and different places in Wayland.  If you see noteworthy flowers in Wayland, please contact the author at waylandweeklyflower@gmail.com

Submitted by Duane Galbi

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