Lonely apple tree

[mothhawk]

On the National Fruit Collection website, Queen Mary appears to be another name for Duchess of Oldenberg, malus domestica Borkh
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[mothhawk]

More info here
Apple - Duchess of Oldenburg - tasting notes, identification, reviews

[FB.]

On the National Fruit Collection website, Queen Mary appears to be another name for Duchess of Oldenberg, malus domestica Borkh
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Big problems with old varieties include:
1. They don't always look or behave the same in all soils, climates or on different rootstocks.
2. They may have been mis-named by their owner, or a mistake when they were grafted/planted.
3. They may have other names in other locations.
4. More than one variety may have the same name (especially in the past when there were more varieties than we have today).
5. Seedlings may resemble their parent (especially if self-pollinated), so the tree may be a seedling of the desired variety, or grafted from a seedling which resembled the variety it's supposed to be.

Even the National Fruit collection have discovered over the years that some of their trees were not the variety they were supposed to be, or two different-name varieties were actually the same.