Lost and Found: Four Rediscovered Apple Varieties
Emily Ellis
It’s apple season at Oak Spring - a time of year when the branches of the property's nearly two hundred apple trees, some close to a century old, are weighed down with a range of beautiful and fragrant fruits, many of them heirloom varieties with rich histories in the United States.
Apple orchards are now a fixture of North American countrysides in the fall, but they didn’t even arrive on the continent until European colonization kicked off in the sixteenth century. These early trees were grown from seed - some peddled by Johnny Appleseed himself, nurseryman John Chapman - and, since they were excruciatingly sour, were primarily made into hard cider. It would be many years before sweet eating apples were developed via grafting and selection.
Once they were, thousands of varieties of apples in a rainbow of shapes, sizes and flavors sprouted throughout the orchards and backyards of early America. Many carried the names of the person who first gifted the tree to a neighbor or family member, or the place where the plant had first been grown.
Those names are the among the few clues apple-hunters have when tracking down long-lost heirloom apples. Many of the thousands of unique species that once graced the backyards and farms of the U.S. fell by the wayside as preference for bigger, shinier, grocery-store quality apples grew in the 20th century. It is thanks to “apple detectives” - dedicated horticulturists, historians, and other apple-lovers who comb through records and oral histories to track down elusive lost varieties - that these fascinating parts of American history were recovered.
Scroll down to read the stories of several fascinating heirloom apples that were lost and found.
Colorado Orange
Photo from The Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project
This distinctive apple, widely believed to be extinct until recently, made headlines when it was rediscovered in a Colorado orchard by Addie and Jude Schuenemeyer, the founders of the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project.
The Colorado Orange was first developed in an orchard in Fremont County, Col., and was a popular fruit throughout its namesake state in the 1800s, winning awards at local fairs and noted for its unusual color and notes of citrus. Like many heirloom apples, it vanished with the rise of popular supermarket varieties like the Red Delicious at the turn of the 20th century.
The Schuenemeyers had been attempting to track down the Colorado Orange for 20 years after first learning of the variety at a country fair. After testing several apples that proved to be other varieties, they came across a true Colorado Orange tucked among the trees in Paul Telck’s Fremont Orchard, and knew they had struck gold (or orange). They are now growing the trees in their own orchard, and hope that the delicious and unique apple will be widely available in a few years - and we can’t wait to try it!
Taliaferro
Watercolor by Susan Walker / Virginia Gazette)
While the jury’s still out on whether the “Holy Grail of Lost Apples” has actually been found, it still makes a good story. The Taliaferro, which holds the distinction of being Thomas Jefferson’s favorite cider apple, was once planted in large numbers in one of his orchards at Monticello. According to Jefferson, it was named after Major Taliaferro of Williamsburg, who found it growing in a neighbor’s field. However, the Taliaferro trees at Monticello have long since gone, and the descriptions of the apple that remain are just vague enough to frustrate apple hunters.
It’s possible that North Carolina-based apple hunter Tom Brown, who has rediscovered more than 1,000 lost apple varieties across Appalachia, has found the apple formerly known as the Taliaferro. After better descriptions of the apple emerged in 2018, Brown believes that the Red Coat in Franklin County, Virginia is a strong candidate for what former Monticello gardener Peter Hatch described as Jefferson’s “mystery apple.” Brown is still working to confirm whether or not the Red Coat is the true Taliaferro - and whether modern-day folks can again taste its famous cider.
Junaluska
Another one of apple hunter Tom Brown’s finds is the Junaluska, which is thought to have originated in Cherokee, NC. Believed to have first been developed by the Cherokee people, it was named after famed Cherokee leader and warrior Junaluska. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture records found by Brown, the state was attempting to buy land from Junaluska in the early 1800s - around the time that tens of thousands of Cherokee people were forcibly displaced by the government - who was reluctant to sell because his favorite apple tree was located on the property in question. State Commissioners ended up paying an additional $50 for the lot with the tree.
The Junaluska was sold throughout Southern nurseries for a period, but vanished before the century concluded. In 2001, Brown came across two trees in Macon Co., NC whose owner said were called “John Berry Keepers” because her father had grafted them from a John Berry’s homestead, with fruit which closely matched the yellowish, knobbly Junaluska. Brown later confirmed the “John Berry Keepers” to be the lost fruit. Out of the thousand lost apples that Brown has rediscovered, he says that the distinctive, storied Junaluska is the one he had most wanted to find.
Illustration by Charles Steadman, 1925. From the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pomological Watercolor Collection.
Nero
The Nero Apple was considered extinct until 2014, when it was found in abandoned orchard in Washington State by David Benscoter of the Lost Apple Project. A century ago the Nero, thought to have originated in New Jersey, was widely grown across the United States, but like many other varieties disappeared by the mid-twentieth century.
Benscoter came across the fruit on a 125 year old tree planted on the slope of the mountain Steptoe Butte by homesteader Robert Edward Burns. While Burns had to abandon the orchard soon after planting due to financial difficulties, the wide variety of apples he planted proved a boon to apple detectives a century later. The Nero is one of 29 lost species rediscovered by the Lost Apple Project in recent years, a list which also includes the Iowa Flat, the Streaked Pippin, the Sary Sinap.
Want to help support apple conservation efforts? Purchasing heirloom trees and fruit, especially unusual varieties, is a great way to start - this Virginia Living article has a great list of local orchards. To support the organizations mentioned in this blog post, visit The Lost Apple Project Facebook page, the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project, and AppleSearch.org.
Banner image: Roger Foley