The Missing Unicorns

Photographs, words and illustrations Nick Sidle

Photograph – Crab Apple, Malus sylvestnis, Kilmorack Parish, Inverness-shire, Highland Scotland

The Crab Apple Malus sylvestris is considered to be a native species in Europe and Britain having recolonised the continent after the ice age. Although it is the wild version of the apple, its fruits are sour even after they are ripe and its main use is in cooking including jams because of the very high pectin content. It found its way into Shakespeare through its addition to punch. He referred to it as ‘these are the crabs that hiss in the bowl’ in ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’. Significant remains of Crab Apples have been found in Neolithic sites so it is possible it was more generally a food source in prehistoric times.

Photograph – Crab Apple, Malus sylvestnis, Kilmorack Parish, Inverness-shire, Highland Scotland

It is one of the important ancestors to the cultivated apple Malus domestica and is believed to have helped lay the foundation to 6000 domestic varieties and although not all of these have lasted to today, unfortunately the Crab Apples remaining 2000 offspring now threaten its survival, hybridisation with domestic apples is one of the greatest threats it faces. Yes, plants can commit parricide, even if they do it very slowly.

In folklore, the apple, which given the age of the beliefs, does mostly refer to the Crab Apple, is associated with life, love, fertility, rebirth, healing and divination. In general terms, the apple was a positive part of your world even if you did not always want to listen to what it had to say. Apples were the fruit of life and could give a clue to a future marriage partner. If lovers threw Crab Apple pips into a fire and they exploded, then their love was true. Apples were also placed by the Celts in graves as food for the dead, something seen as far back as 7000 BCE. This belief may be the one that grew into the association of apples with Halloween in pagan culture. The Celts also called the Crab Apple ‘The Tree of Love’. This general positive apple imagery was later co-opted by the Christian Church, for example, in the story that when St Servanus threw his pastoral staff across the Firth of Forth, it took root where it landed and grew into an apple tree. Having given it power, suspicion followed and in medieval times the church believed that an apple could be cursed and made enchanted and if eaten would lead to demonic possession. The answer was to always rub an apple clean before eating it to remove any evil spirits concealed inside, probably good hygiene advice before any spiritual detoxification is considered. Given the costs of upkeep of large scale churches and monasteries, it is a shame that the leaders of the church then did not have the foresight to foresee cartoons in the cinema and take steps to protect the intellectual property rights, Disney would have had to negotiate.

Photograph – Crab Apple, Malus sylvestnis, Kilmorack Parish, Inverness-shire, Highland Scotland

Crab Apples grow slowly taking 12-15 years to bear fruit and live a long time, up to 100 years. A yellow dye can be made from the bark and has been used in making Harris tweed. They are also a source of food to animals and birds, including deer and badgers. The juice of crushed Crab Apples was a traditional treatment in Highland Scotland for cramps and sprains and they and extracts from them were part of a herbalist’s practice for a variety of conditions. These approaches have never really been fully evaluated by science but given that Crab Apples contain sugars, amino acids, potassium, iron, magnesium, C and B vitamins, pectin, phosphates, tartaric acids and salts, it is far from inconceivable that significant medical benefits could be expected in the right circumstances.

The Crab Apple is an important native British tree and needs to be protected and considered if it is to survive long term. Culturally it is more than just a unique living thing, its ethos has entered the foundations of folklore, popular culture and spirituality for centuries. To King Arthur, Avalon, the kingdom of the faeries and the dead where he was taken, was also known as Avallach, the Isle of the Apples. Apple groves are said to be the home of unicorns and on a misty day, you may catch a glimpse of one under the trees and feasting on the apples. Unicorns are already very difficult to find, at least we can help keep their ancestral homes for future generations, even if it is too late for those generations to include them and who knows, if we preserve enough wild apples we might just see the Unicorns again.

Of course we could look for them further afield. It is not just the British and European Crab Apple Malus sylvestris which lived in the wild. Other related Malus species especially the Chinese Crab Apple Malus sieversii occupied a similar place in the ecosystems of their home and also contributed to the genetic foundations from which domestic apples were bred, the Chinese variant especially. Native Americans harvested and farmed their native species now known as the Oregon Crab Apple Malus musca, which in turn found its genetic way into domestic apples through selective breeding, grafting and seeds. In the United States, much of this can be traced back to John Chapman who became known as Johnny Appleseed suggesting how much he was associated with orchard farming at the time. He much preferred to work from seeds rather than grafts something which also shaped the name.

A recent paper from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology examined the origins of the domestic apple.

https://www.shh.mpg.de/1321592/origins-of-the-apple

The conclusion was that modern apples are the hybrid of at least four wild apple populations and that the famed trading route of the Silk Road played a large part in bringing the different genetic forms together, including from the Tien Shan Mountains where wild apples have larger sweeter fruits compared to most native varieties including the European Malus sylvestris. The explanation may be that small fruits evolved to appeal to birds who then spread the seeds, whilst larger fruits are more attractive to larger animals such as bears and wild horses, all of which could mean that the Unicorns are trying their luck at the other end of the Silk Road. Who knows, perhaps that’s where we should be looking.

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