crab appletree

crab appletree (plural crab appletrees)

1. Rare form of crabapple tree.
   • 1846, Thomas Power, “First Division: Phænogamic or Vascular Plants”, in The Botanist’s Guide for the County of Cork. Being a Systematic Catalogue of the Native Plants of the County, and More Especially of the Vicinity of Cork, Together with Their Stations, […], subclass II (Calycifloræ), order XXVII (Rosaceæ), tribe V (Pomeæ), section 101 (Pyrus, Linn. Pear Apple.), page 23:

     248.* P. communis, L. Wild Peartree. […] 249. P. malus, L. Crab Appletree. Dodgesglen and on fences.—common.

   • 1890, Hubert Howe Bancroft, “Springs and Little Brooks”, in The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft (Literary Industries), volume XXXIX, San Francisco, Calif.: The History Company, […], page 83:

     Dimly, subduedly sweet, were those days, clouded perhaps a little with boyish melancholy, and now brought to my remembrance by the play of sunshine and shadow in and round familiar nooks, by the leafy woodbine under the garden wall, by the sparkling dewy grass-blades, and the odor of the breathing woods, by the crab-appletree hedge, covered with grape-vines, and bordered with blackberry bushes, and inclosing the several fields, each shedding its own peculiar fragrance;

   • 1900, Whitley Stokes, Kuno Meyer, Archiv für celtische Lexikographie, Halle a. S.: Max Niemeyer; London: David Nutt, […]; Paris: Emile Bouillon, […]:

     ablacán a crab-appletree, P. O’ C.

   • 1905, Henry Bradshaw Society, page 452:

     crab-appletree (fiadaball) 156.

   • 1906, Report of the Minister of Lands and Forests of the Province of Quebec, page 105:

     Pyrus malus, Linn. / Pommier sauvage. / Wild apple. / Crab appletree.

   • 1922, History of McHenry County, Illinois, Chicago, Ill.: Munsell Publishing Company, pages 884–885:

     The local difficulty he encountered was mainly in root killing, and the plan he adopted was grafting in hardy crab appletree roots, thus producing strong trees, not likely to winter kill, that are now in an excellent healthy condition.

   • 1946, The Breeder’s Gazette: A Weekly Publication Devoted to the Interests of Live-stock Breeders:

     So lilting was the cadence that the lambs started to gambol ’round the crab appletree like children about a Maypole.

   • 1983, William H. Quillian, “Appendix B”, in A. Walton Litz, editor, Hamlet and the New Poetic: James Joyce and T.S. Eliot (Studies in Modern Literature; No. 13), Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, →ISBN, page 104:

     drinking bout at Bidford: slept under crab appletree