Appearance
The flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated by insects. Its leaves are food of the caterpillars of the Twin-spotted Sphinx (Smerinthus jamaicensis) and possibly the Hawthorn Moth (Scythropia crataegella).
Naming
In the past, M. sylvestris was thought to be an important ancestor of the cultivated apples (M. domestica), but these have now been shown to have been originally derived from the central Asian species M. sieversii. However, another recent DNA analysis showed that M. sylvestris has contributed to the ancestry of M. domestica very significantly. The study found that secondary introgression from other species of the Malus genus has greatly shaped the genome of M. domestica, with M. sylvestris being the largest contributor. It also found that current populations of M. domestica are more closely related to M. sylvestris than to M. sieversii. However in more pure strains of M. domestica the M. sieversii ancestry still predominates.References:
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