Cultivar 41: Mercer

Mercer is a wild crabapple selection, described as a spontaneous hybrid. It has yellow, oblate fruit that is often more than 6 cm across and can reach about 2 5/8 inches and 3 ounces. The fruit is acid and acerb, not dessert quality. Sources consistently describe it as a jelly and sauce apple valued for the quince-like flavor it can add to applesauce. [S2] [S3]

Sources trace Mercer to a wild tree found near Sherrard in Mercer County, Illinois, by N. K. Fluke of Davenport, Iowa, around the 1890s. One prairie reference shortens this to "Fluke c.1892." [S2] [S3] In N. E. Hansen's 1927 bulletin, Mercer appears among native wild crab seedlings with Giant and Missouri. It is presented as material found growing wild, not as a deliberate breeding cross. Hansen also noted that at that stage such wild crab selections were valued more as ornamental lawn trees than as fruit sorts. [S3]

The fruit is yellow, oblate, and sharply acid. [S3] Prairie Canada sources say it is often over 6 cm in diameter, while Hansen gave a maximum size of 2 5/8 inches and a weight of about 3 ounces. [S2] [S3] The flavor is described as acid and acerb. Its main use was in jelly or to add a quince-like note to applesauce, not for fresh eating. [S2] [S3]

Tree notes are sparse but distinctive. Hansen wrote that Mercer was especially productive at the South Dakota station when top grafted onto Hibernal apple. He also said the tree is beautiful in bloom. [S3] This suggests Mercer had value both as a hardy ornamental crab and as a useful processing fruit.

No source in this set gives a formal hardiness zone. The evidence is indirect. Mercer was preserved in Hansen's northern plains introduction work, classed with native wild crab material, and reported productive in South Dakota station trials when worked on Hibernal. [S3] This places it in a prairie hardy context, but the packet does not support a tighter zone claim.

Mercer also appears later in lineage records as a parent of Sweet Russet Crab. This matters as evidence that it was not only collected but also used in later breeding. The packet does not provide the other parent for that cross, so Mercer should be treated here as a wild crabapple selection with later breeding use, not as a fully resolved pedigree case. [S3]

Summary source basis

• S1: New Hardy Fruits for the Northwest
• S2: Edible Apples in Prairie Canada
• S3: Plant Introductions

This summary currently draws chiefly from Plant Introductions, with 2 additional supporting sources linked below.

Featured source descriptions

“Attributed to Fluke, circa 1892.”
— ^[1]

“Found growing wild.”
— ^[3]

“Indexed at Bulletin 224, page 14.”
— ^[2]

“Index entry listed on page 14.”
— ^[3]

Direct parent cultivars

• No direct linked parent cultivars promoted yet.

Parentage claim text

• No direct breeding_cross claim text yet.

Derived or downstream cultivar links

• Sweet Russet Crab (lineage link)

Source-story quotations

• Mercer (spont. hybrid) Fluke (c.1892) STEdible Apples in Prairie Canada, p47
• Mercer (spont. hybrid) Fluke (c.1892) STEdible Apples in Prairie Canada, p47
• Mercer (spont. hybrid) Fluke (c.1892) STEdible Apples in Prairie Canada, p47
• Mercer (spont. hybrid) Fluke (c.1892) STEdible Apples in Prairie Canada, p47

Taxonomy context: No family-tree context surfaced yet.

Related cultivars mentioned in source context