The apple tree meaning
An integral part of the American experience, “As American as Apple Pie” (which in truth is not American), the apple is nevertheless ubiquitous in U.S. culture. We put it in desserts, give it to our favorite teachers, wash our hair with its essence and put it in our lunches. So common, it’s easy to take the simple apple for granted, but it actually has a rather interesting history.
A Member of the Rose Family
Otherwise known as Malus domestica, the apple is a member of the Rosaceae family, and its siblings include the strawberry (Fraaria L.), the plum (Prunus L.), the pear (Pyrus L.), the blackberry (Rubus L.) and the rose (Rosa L.).
Common characteristics of this family include blossoms with a hypanthium (a floral cup on the flower), radial symmetry, 5 distinct petals, and many stamen and stipules (leaf-like structures).
Recent scholarship has shown that the modern apple we enjoy today started initially with the wild apple species M. sieversii that later intermingled with M. sylvestris.
How Apple Trees Make Fruit
On an apple blossom, the parts that turn into the fruit we eat (called the “pome”) are the “basal portions of the petals, calyx [sepals], and stamen [composed of an anther and filament] . . . fused into hypanthium tissue and attached to the ovary [which is] below [the other parts].”
Apples blossoms have to be fertilized, and each blossom has both male and female parts. The stamen, with its anther and filament, is male, while the ovary and stigmas are female.
Each apple’s life begins with a bud that slowly develops leaves, then a blossom. When the blossom opens, the stamen (with the pollen-rich anther) is exposed, as is the base of blossom where the nectar is located.
Bees and other pollinators seeking out nectar brush against the anther and inadvertently pick up pollen. As the bee moves from blossom to blossom drinking nectar, some of its hitchhiking pollen is rubbed off on the blossom’s stigmas [which transfer the pollen to the ovary].
Once fertilized, the blossom’s anthers (which have shed their pollen) along with the petals shrivel up and the latter falls off. Next, the stamen dries up and the fruit quickly develops underneath the sepals [which ultimately become the brown bits opposite the stem on a ripe apple].
History of Cultivated Apples
The naturalist Henry David Thoreau noted the close relationship between people and apples, since before recorded history:
It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is connected with that of man. The geologist tells us that the order of the Rosaceae, which includes the Apple . . . were introduced only a short time previous to the appearance of man on the globe [and] . . . traces have lately been found at the bottom of the Swiss lakes [with people] supposed to be older than the foundation of Rome . . . The apple was early so important, and so generally distributed, that its name traced to its root in many languages signifies fruit in general . . . .
Scientists believe that apples were first domesticated in the Tian Shan region of southern Kazakhstan. In fact, by as early as 2000 BC, domesticated apples were being grafted in the Near East.
The Greeks and Romans introduced the domesticated apple to North Africa and Europe during their trading and conquests. These fathers of western civilization were equally impressed with the fruit, using it as a central device in some of their most lasting stories, like this myth from about 700-800 BC that explains the roots of the Trojan War:
All the gods were invited [to a wedding] with the exception of Eris, or Discord. Enraged at her exclusion, the goddess threw a golden apple among the guests with the inscription, “For the most beautiful.” Thereupon Juno [Hera], Venus [Aphrodite] and Minerva [Athena], each claimed the apple. Jupiter [Zeus] not willing to decide in so delicate a matter, sent the goddesses to . . . the beautiful shepherd Paris . . . and to him was committed the decision. . . . Juno promised him power and riches, Minerva glory and renown in war, and Venus the fairest of women for his wife [Helen] . . . . Paris decided in favor of Venus and gave her the golden apple . . . . Under [her] protection . . . Paris sailed to Greece [and] . . . aided by Venus, persuaded [Helen] to slope with him, and carried her to Troy. . . .
It was because of the Greek usage of the apple in many tales that the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden is so often depicted today as an apple. Aquila Ponticus, who was a second century translator translating the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek, took the liberty of translating it as an apple tree, even though the original text doesn’t say that. He did this because he was translating it into Greek for Greeks, and, as alluded to, in Greek mythology apples were seen as symbols of desire and destruction.
Original Colonists
The crab apple tree is the only malus species native to North America and likely greeted the first European explorers, who found the tart fruit a poor substitute for Malus domestica. This is likely why the settlers of Jamestown brought apple tree cuttings and seeds with them when they founded the colony.
Notably, however, most apples during colonial times were not eaten, but were instead used to make cider. More than just a treat, cider was commonly served, even to children, since reliably safe drinking water was a rarity in the early colonies.
Settlers
In order to grow the young country, many colonies (and later the states) set requirements before granting land rights (known as patents) including the mandate to improve the land (called “seating and planting):
The act defined . . . with great particularity, what should be deemed sufficient seating and planting. The patentee was required . . . to clear and tend three acres, or to clear and drain three acres of swamp , or to . . . there keep . . . cattle . . . sheep or goats. [For] every £ 5 expended in . . . planting trees . . . should save 50 acres [of unimproved land, also granted with the patent].
Since apples were so useful, among the trees most planted were at least two apple trees since the species needs “a second tree for cross-pollination to occur.”
Obviously, it would be difficult for settlers in the Northwest Territory (in colonial times, this meant northwest of the Ohio River) to drag seedlings along in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. Having learned the apple business as a young man in Massachusetts, John Chapman brought his knowledge to western Pennsylvania and started his own apple tree business in about 1801.
Planting seedlings near creeks and rivers close to where new land patents were being granted, Chapman provided the settlers with the apple trees they needed to improve their land. Working for 50 years throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, Chapman was responsible for so many apple trees and orchards, he earned the name Johnny Appleseed.
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APPLE TREE
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Dictionary entry overview: What does apple tree mean?
1. any tree of the genus Malus especially those bearing firm rounded edible fruits 
Familiarity information: APPLE TREE used as a noun is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
• APPLE TREE (noun)
Any tree of the genus Malus especially those bearing firm rounded edible fruits
Nouns denoting plants
Hypernyms («apple tree» is a kind of. ):
fruit tree (tree bearing edible fruit)
Meronyms (substance of «apple tree»):
applewood (wood of any of various apple trees of the genus Malus)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of «apple tree»):
apple; Malus pumila; orchard apple tree (native Eurasian tree widely cultivated in many varieties for its firm rounded edible fruits)
crab apple; crabapple; wild apple (any of numerous wild apple trees usually with small acidic fruit)
crab apple; crabapple; cultivated crab apple (any of numerous varieties of crab apples cultivated for their small acidic (usually bright red) fruit used for preserves or as ornamentals for their blossoms)
Holonyms («apple tree» is a member of. ):
genus Malus; Malus (apple trees; found throughout temperate zones of the northern hemisphere)
A team of researchers, led by Kim McConkey from the University of Nottingham, set out to study one particular tree, the Platymitra macrocarpa from the family of custard apple trees.
(Thai Elephants Help Spread Jungle Fruit’s Seeds, Sadie Witkowski/VOA)
Oh! What a sweet little cottage there is among the trees—apple trees, too!
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Jo spent the morning on the river with Laurie and the afternoon reading and crying over The Wide, Wide World, up in the apple tree.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I remember, before the dwarf left the queen, he followed us one day into those gardens, and my nurse having set me down, he and I being close together, near some dwarf apple trees, I must needs show my wit, by a silly allusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold in their language as it does in ours.
(Gulliver’s Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Out in our garden is an apple tree that has a nice low branch, so Jo put the saddle on it, fixed some reins on the part that turns up, and we bounce away on Ellen Tree whenever we like.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
«No,» said Jo, «that dozy way wouldn’t suit me. I’ve laid in a heap of books, and I’m going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple tree, when I’m not having l—»
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
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«The Apple Tree» ending and the meaning behind it
I’ve recently been tasked with analysing «The Apple Tree» by John Galsworthy. I’ve had no major issues with understanding the text, but I really can’t grasp the ending.
Up on the top of the hill, beyond where he had spread the lunch, over, out of sight, he lay down on his face. So had his virtue been rewarded, and «the Cyprian,» goddess of love, taken her revenge! And before his eyes, dim with tears, came Megan’s face with the sprig of apple blossom in her dark, wet hair. ‘What did I do that was wrong?’ he thought. ‘What did I do?’ But he could not answer. Spring, with its rush of passion, its flowers and song-the spring in his heart and Megan’s! Was it just Love seeking a victim! The Greek was right, then—the words of the «Hippolytus» as true to-day!
What exactly is going on here? Is he confused about what he did wrong and blaming the goddess of love?
1 Answer 1
Yes, he cannot see his own wrong and instead blames the goddess of love.
For context here, it’s useful to know a little about the classical reference that Frank Ashurst is making. It’s first put into the reader’s mind all the way back at the beginning, in the epigraph of this story:
«The Apple-tree, the singing and the gold.»
Murray’s «Hippolytus of Euripides»
This refers to the ancient Greek tragic play Hippolytus by Euripides, as translated into English by Gilbert Murray (translated version available on Project Gutenberg). The quote used for this epigraph comes from a chorus spoken in the play just as Phaedra, wife of Theseus, is about to kill herself after being spurned by Theseus’s son Hippolytus whom she loves. In the context of the play, this line refers to the idea of fleeing to the garden of the Hesperides with their singing and their golden apple trees.
The same line has inspired other authors: Jean Nordhaus wrote a poem entitled «The Apple Tree, the Singing, and the Gold», which again is about death and loss, referring also to unrequited love.
The reference to Hippolytus is emphasised again in Galsworthy’s story, as Ashurst is reading it (in Murray’s translation) while sitting on the moor and waiting for his wife to finish her sketching. In this story, «The Apple Tree» refers to a real apple tree in the Devon countryside, the place where Frank and Megan consummated their relationship, as well as the place supposedly haunted by the «gipsy bogle» that scares Megan so much. This is the most important physical location in the story, but to refer to it in the context of Euripides’s Hippolytus emphasises the connection with romantic tragedy.
Skipping ahead to the paragraph you quoted near the very end of the story, this immediately precedes a longer quote from Hippolytus:
For mad is the heart of Love,
And gold the gleam of his wing;
And all to the spell thereof
Bend, when he makes his spring;
All life that is wild and young
In mountain and wave and stream,
All that of earth is sprung,
Or breathes in the red sunbeam;
Yea, and Mankind. O’er all a royal throne,
Cyprian, Cyprian, is thine alone!
Here «Love» refers to Eros, the ancient Greek god of love, while «Cyprian» refers to Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love, sometimes known as Cyprian since she was supposedly born in Cyprus. The context of this quote in Hippolytus is again a chorus, this time spoken after Theseus hears of his son’s mortal injury without remorse, and just before Artemis arrives to tell him the truth about his wife and son. This chorus sets up the goddess of love as an all-powerful entity who brought about all the tragedy of the story, as Artemis confirms moments later.
In Galsworthy’s story, Ashurst is using the words of the ancient Greek play as a high-brow way to excuse his own behaviour. He appeals to ancient philosophy in order to make the case (even if only to himself) that Love, either as an abstract concept or a personified deity, is to blame for the tragic death of Megan, rather than the actions of people — more specifically, his own actions.
Was it just Love seeking a victim! The Greek was right, then—the words of the «Hippolytus» as true to-day!
The capitalisation of Love, along with the reference to a «victim», shows that, like Euripides in Hippolytus, he places the blame for events on the shoulders of an abstract or deified Love. He tells himself openly that «The Greek [Euripides] was right», and quotes the passage which exalts Aphrodite as holding power over all. The «victim» referred to is of course the poor dead Megan, but he would like to see himself as a victim also: a victim of the whims of the love goddess, just like both Phaedra and Hippolytus.
Even earlier, near the beginning of the story, Ashurst ponders on «the apple-tree, the singing, and the gold», and the supposed unachievability of lasting happiness for mortal men:
Maladjusted to life—man’s organism! One’s mode of life might be high and scrupulous, but there was always an undercurrent of greediness, a hankering, and sense of waste. Did women have it too? Who could tell? And yet, men who gave vent to their appetites for novelty, their riotous longings for new adventures, new risks, new pleasures, these suffered, no doubt, from the reverse side of starvation, from surfeit. No getting out of it—a maladjusted animal, civilised man! There could be no garden of his choosing, of «the Apple-tree, the singing, and the gold,» in the words of that lovely Greek chorus, no achievable elysium in life, or lasting haven of happiness for any man with a sense of beauty—nothing which could compare with the captured loveliness in a work of art, set down for ever, so that to look on it or read was always to have the same precious sense of exaltation and restful inebriety. Life no doubt had moments with that quality of beauty, of unbidden flying rapture, but the trouble was, they lasted no longer than the span of a cloud’s flight over the sun; impossible to keep them with you, as Art caught beauty and held it fast. They were fleeting as one of the glimmering or golden visions one had of the soul in nature, glimpses of its remote and brooding spirit.
Re-reading this passage in light of the revelations later in the story about his past life, this might reflect Ashurst’s lasting dissatisfaction with his own life. Even when starting to read about him and Stella, before learning of his past with Megan, I got the impression of a married couple who were content but not truly loving. The description of both spouses is rather clinical and emotionless, the only positive words about Stella being «comely and faithful», and even these are sandwiched between remarks on how she is no longer young (and even her youthful self is never described as exceptionally beautiful or attractive). Perhaps Ashurst believes that «civilised man» has no chance of lasting happiness because he himself gave up that chance, gave up passion and romance for a steady orthodox life with a steady orthodox wife.
Comparing the plots of Euripides’s Hippolytus and Galsworthy’s «The Apple Tree», the conclusion is quite damning for Ashurst.
- The ancient Greek characters are truly manipulated by malicious gods; Phaedra’s love for her stepson Hippolytus is forbidden and impossible, and he does not return her love. It is the manipulation of her heart by a jealous Aphrodite, and his lack of affection due to Artemis, that causes tragedy. The whole series of events is almost inevitable after Phaedra falls in love with Hippolytus.
- The English characters, on the other hand, are much more free agents. Ashurst could have left the Hallidays and continued his romance with Megan as he planned. The reason he fails to do so is his own indecision; the reason he ultimately decides against Megan is the difference in their social class, surely a much less compelling reason not to marry someone (whom he also loves!) than her being his father’s wife. He knows that Megan loves him, and his own feeling for her seems much stronger than for Stella, but he lacks the backbone even to go and tell her that he is abandoning her.
Now, as a forty-eight-year-old man in the framing story, he seeks to justify his own actions by telling himself that they all — he, Megan, and perhaps Stella too — were only victims of a cruel prank of the goddess of Love.
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