Not ‘Cornish Aromatic’? A New Mystery Apple to Identify

When I first started growing apple trees, back in 2016, a research visit was paid to the sales department of the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale in Kent, and in a fit of naïve enthusiasm, I rushed into ordering three apple trees from them: ‘Blenheim Orange’, ‘Herefordshire Russet’ and ‘Cornish Aromatic’.

Initially I attempted to grow all three trees in air-pots, and none of them were particularly successful, and by 2021 it was clear that I had to think again. The ‘Blenheim Orange’ – a completely unsuitable candidate for a pot-growing, if I knew then what I know now, etc. – was donated to a local community orchard, and the other two were planted out on our allotment in the winter of 2022.

Neither the ‘Herefordshire Russet’ nor the ‘Cornish Aromatic’ fruited particularly well in 2023 or 2024, due to a combination of generally poor growing conditions and sustained predation by the local squirrel population. This year though, with a much warmer, drier spring and a fairly consistent mix of rain and sunshine over the summer so far, they’ve both produced a decent crop of apples. Which is why it’s taken me this long to realise that our alleged ‘Cornish Aromatic’ isn’t a ‘Cornish Aromatic’ after all…

The Case for Re-Identification

‘Cornish Aromatic’ is described, in all the sources I’ve found it in¹Morgan & Richards, Bultitude, Taylor, etc. all of whom reference earlier pomologists all of whom describe it as a good-flavoured apple, which has apparently been grown for centuries in its native Cornwall., as a mid-October ripening, conical-shaped, red-flushed, faintly striped, distinctly russeted apple, which is reputed to be “firm fleshed, with sweet sharp, almost pear drop quality, yet almost spicy too”²The Book of Apples (1993), Joan Morgan and Alison Richards, p.196.

Here are the reference photos for ‘Cornish Aromatic’ from the National Fruit Collection Database, which match that general description quite nicely:

I have to say that looks and sounds like just my sort of apple. I do love a russet, or even a demi-russet, and those pear-drop and spice flavours sound right up my street, too.

However, the apples from the tree on our allotment plot started ripening in late July and now, in mid August are almost all off the tree – even allowing for a few varieties coming in early this year due to the warm, dry weather, two months ahead of a mid-October schedule is excessive – and are soft-fleshed, juicy, sweet, and very tasty, but with none of those spicy, pear-drop notes.

Here’s a photo³With the usual apologies for the slightly dodgy quality of the pics that my phone insists on taking, whatever settings I seem to apply. of the apples in question:

Note also the flat-round shape, the glossy, deep red flush across the majority of the skin, the very pale, almost indistinguishable lenticel dots, and most particularly, the pointed sepals and beading (bumps) around the eye of the fruit.

Here’s another photo to show the beading around the basin of these three fruits, which, as you can see, is quite pronounced:

The reference images for ‘Cornish Aromatic’ on FruitID.com support the case for our apples being a different variety as well, showing an apple that’s definitely conical, a lighter shade of red than ours, and with plenty of russeting and bright, distinct lenticel dots all over the surface, which our apples are lacking.

Case closed, I think. Our apple definitely isn’t ‘Cornish Aromatic’. Which leads to an obvious question: which apple is it?

The (Re)Identification Process

I’ve already written a detailed article on how to identify apple and pear varieties so I won’t go through the entire process again. Suffice to say that I spent a happy half hour cross-referencing characteristics in the FruitID.com identification database and then poring over the results.

‘Spartan‘ came up a couple of times, but once again it’s an October-ripening apple, and has very visible lenticels, which our apple doesn’t. I was wondering whether we might have a good old ‘Worcester Pearmain‘, but there’s a very large tree of that cultivar⁴A deliberately cultivated, as opposed to randomly arising seedling, variety, hence ‘culti’+’var’. at work and they never seem to develop anywhere near as deep a red tone.

The closest match at one point seemed to be ‘Crimson Newton‘, a redder sport of ‘Newton Wonder’, which as you can see from the N. F. C. reference image is fairly close:

But it’s lacking those pronounced beading bumps around the eye, so I wasn’t convinced that it was quite right. And then, after I altered one or two of the FruitID search criteria by a point or two, it brought up a set of results that included ‘Devonshire Quarrenden‘.

These are some of the reference images from the FruitID.com database:

And here’s the N. F. C. database version:

The FruitID.com apples are just about as highly coloured as our specimens, and the ones in the N. F. C. database have any even deeper red colour⁵Which could, of course, be a result of the lighting conditions used in the photo shoot., but both show flat-round apples, with hardly any russeting outside the stalk cavity and almost unnoticeable lenticels. And the crucial characteristic – the pronounced beading around the eye – is present in both sets of reference images.

Folks, I’m around 95% certain that we have a match.

The Verdict

So, our tree is a ‘Devonshire Quarrenden’ rather than a ‘Cornish Aromatic’. I’m not at all upset at that outcome. I think, on balance, I’d have preferred to have the later ripening, russet apple, but having another flavourful, early fruiter in our collection, alongside ‘Discovery’ and ‘Tydeman’s Early Worcester’, is no bad thing.

‘Devonshire Quarrenden’ has a great pedigree too, as detailed on FruitID.com, with a reference to an apple by that name as far back as John Worlidge’s Vinetum Britannicum (1678). It’s also the parent of ‘Worcester Pearmain’, according to Robert Hogg in The Fruit Manual 4th edition (1875), which in turn was one of the most popular commercial apples in the U.K. in the first half of the twentieth century, and I believe is still reasonably widely grown today.

As for how I ended up with ‘Devonshire Quarrenden’ instead of ‘Cornish Aromatic’, well, it was probably a simple mix-up, which could have occurred at any point from cutting and bagging the scion wood, to grafting the tree, to labelling the young trees in the nursery, to the picking and delivery stage. Easily done, at anywhere along the chain.

It does, however, leave me with one small problem: I now really, really want to add an actual ‘Cornish Aromatic’ to my cordon orchard. If anyone out there – U.K. based for preference – has a verified ‘Cornish Aromatic’ tree and would be happy to send me a few scions next grafting season, please do let me know, either via the comments, or by email. I’d be very happy indeed to swap a few scions from my own trees, or just cover the cost of postage if you prefer. Many thanks in advance!

If you’re interested in identifying your own mystery apples, please see that article I mentioned earlier: How To: Identify Apple and Pear Varietes. And if you enjoy apple detective stories, there’s also Identifying a Mystery Apple Tree on Plot #79 (September 2021), Apple I.D. Practice – Four Mystery Varieties to Identify (October 2021), Another Mystery Apple to Identify (October 2022), and Apple Identification Practice – Re-Examining a ‘Rosemary Russet’ (October 2024).

How about you? Have you identified any mystery apples recently? Which reference sources do you prefer to use? Have you any top tips for would-be pomology detectives? Do let me know, via the comments.

Footnotes

• 1
  Morgan & Richards, Bultitude, Taylor, etc. all of whom reference earlier pomologists all of whom describe it as a good-flavoured apple, which has apparently been grown for centuries in its native Cornwall. ↩︎
• 2
  The Book of Apples (1993), Joan Morgan and Alison Richards, p.196 ↩︎
• 3
  With the usual apologies for the slightly dodgy quality of the pics that my phone insists on taking, whatever settings I seem to apply. ↩︎
• 4
  A deliberately cultivated, as opposed to randomly arising seedling, variety, hence ‘culti’+’var’. ↩︎
• 5
  Which could, of course, be a result of the lighting conditions used in the photo shoot. ↩︎