I'm not sure what type of apple tree this is, but it is quite a specimen. It's declining, but that's to be expected. It's gonna hurt when it goes. It's roughly 30' tall with a spread of 60+ feet. It graces a mall church's courtyard area in Anoka, MN, which happens to be the home town of Garrison Keillor.
When I was a kid we had a really nice treehouse in an apple like that. Man did it smell nice. Later we would have green apple fights with the boys next door. Ouch. Garrison Keillor could do a story about that, I bet.
That's a darn nice apple - for a pear (Pyrus sp.)...
Nice tree for sure but what is a 'mall church'?
Ok VV, I too assumed it was an apple. How did you tell the difference? Habit? Leaf? Flower? Bark?
Oh, shoot, pear. Might it be Ussurian?
From images provided, the leaves look like pear - as does the bark. The dimensions provided also sounded too extreme for an apple - especially where sited.
Pseudo could bless us with additional imagery, if possible. Some closeups would satisfy skeptics to absolute ID.
I'll blame this missed ID on irrational exuberance. Hey, it worked for Alan Greenspan! Does pyrus generally flower earlier than malus? I don't recall seeing any crabs flowering that day, which should have made me pause and think this through a bit more. On the other hand, don't pear flowers have a disagreeable odor? This one did not. In any case, I get to Lake Wobegone regularly and will get some additional info -- if I remember!
Has there ever been an attempt to breed foul odor out of a plant? I realize it would be an abomination of nature, but they seem to be doing all kinds of crazy things with plants and this doesn't seem so far fetched.
Sequoia, it was supposed to be "small." Actually, there was no need to include it. I don't think the size of the church had much relevance.
Lol...yeah I was just wondering if they were planting churches in malls now.
