Southern Crabapple
Malus angustifolia
Southern crabapple perfumes the spring woods with intensely fragrant rose-pink bloom, followed by aromatic green crabapples used for jelly and eaten by wildlife. A suckering small tree of the Southeast. As with every apple, the flesh is the food and the seeds are cyanogenic — worth knowing when milling fruit for jelly, though the flesh itself carries none.
- Family
- Rosaceae
- Type
- tree
- Lifespan
- perennial
- Height
- 15–25 ft
- Spacing
- 15–25 ft apart
- Light
- part shade
- Soil moisture
- moist
- Soil pH
- acidic, neutral
- Bloom
- February, March, April, May
- Bloom colors
- pink
- Wildlife value
- pollinators, butterflies, mammals, songbirds, larval host
- Caterpillar hosts
- ~308 butterfly & moth species
- Landscape uses
- naturalizing
- Native states
- AL, AR, DC, FL, GA, IL, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NJ, OH, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV