Many times during the 1990's, in late springtime, I notified through the car
window a striking white blossom along the ground at the border of woods and highway embankment in Kauniainen,
southern Finland. Lastly, the embarrassing plant was visited for an
identification and I found that it concerned a deviating morph of the cultivated apple
tree, Malus domestica Borkh. (Rosaceae). Probably the stand comprised
one tree only. A main stem was present but it was rather short and appeared somewhat stunted in
its growth. However, several vigorous long branches got rise from its lowest parts.
The branches were creeping and prostrate, depressed on the ground. These
stolon-like twigs were slightly rooting in places. The carpet-like system of
twigs covered several square metres. The branches flowered richly every
year which provided a deviating vision in the Finnish nature. I collected a specimen
of the plant on June 8, 1996.
Roughly the same time also one my colleagues,
Mr. Mikko
Piirainen, M. Sc., observed this same stand. He wrote a brief note on the
occurrence (Piirainen, M. 1998: Mattomainen, juurehtiva omenapuu [with
English abstract].
– Sorbifolia 29: 165-166.) He collected a specimen on June 15,
1995. According
to his paper, the stand would have been destroyed through soil construction works
in
1997-1998. However, I checked the occurrence in the seasons of 2001 and 2002 and, luckily
enough, the stand, though having damaged, survived. It appears that the original tree
did not survive but some of its rooting branches
that became independent.
Besides the note published by Piirainen, there are two
reports of this kind of apple tree
from Finland: Erkamo, V. 1990: Maata pitkin omenapuu (Malus
domestica).
– Sorbifolia 21: 68
(from Helsinki) and Valtonen, P. 2004: Eräitä kesän 2003 kasviretken
tuloksia.
–
Talvikki 28: 2-9 (from Ahvenanmaa).
In the summer of 2002 I found two additional small stands of this plant in Pasila (Helsinki City): 1) Ilmala, a stand comprising 1 + 2 individuals on street side at forest margin, with a near-by tree of typical M. domestica (July 14), 2) Pohjois-Pasila, one individual in true wasteland on street side (August 4). On October 1 of 2003, one rather small tree of this type was observed in Karjalohja, Suurniemi (SW Finland); it grew in the side of an abandoned cart road through dryish rich woods, and possessed truly rooting twigs. No specimens were collected of the above findings.
All six occurrences of this morph are situated in
southernmost Finland, and the trees grow at or close to a roadside on each
occasion. It is
noteworthy that, in the plants known for the time being, the main stem only
reaches about two metres at most. It seems that the plant invests a major
proportion of its biomass to the branches growing along the ground. This curious kind of
apple tree is either (i)
a genetically determined race, possibly adapted to a disturbed habitat with
polluted soil and often only few competing plants, or (ii) a
non-hereditary morph misshaped due to the special conditions of this kind of
habitat (combined with an adaptation to the possible suffering of the main
stem?), or (iii) a non-hereditary morph misshaped through an infection by
some microorganism (for instance, Salix caprea growing in similar, disturbed habitats is
sometimes infected
by the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens which causes the Crown Gall
disease).
Anyway, this kind
of Malus domestica is unknown to the Finnish flora works, and also seems to be unnamed.
Created March 3, 2003. Latest revision May 4, 2004.