Dissection of a Stirling Castle, or other apple

Our next apple to be identified is a beautiful, compact, globular beauty that shines like a Christmas tree ornament (formerly known as Tree #2).  These are tart, crisp, and firm.  They seem to be ripening up just now, in mid-to-late October.

The apple man told us it could be a "Stirling Castle", but he wasn't entirely sure.

If this is a Stirling Castle, then we have an old Scottish apple that was grown around Stirling in the 1830s.  Stirling Castles are "pea green" ripening to "light yellow, pinky or light brown" according to the Garden Apple I.D. website.  They are a cooking apple but also good to eat, if somewhat tart.

Orange Pippin tells us of Stirling Castle:

Stirling Castle is a large green/yellow Scottish cooking apple, with a good flavour, raised near the town of Stirling in the 1830s by John Christie.  The variety became quite popular, and was rated by the Victorian writer Hogg as "an excellent early culinary apple, in use in August and September"... It remains a popular garden apple variety in the UK and tolerates damp climates.

Let's see what a dissection will tell us.  Looking at the Garden Apple I.D. page for Stirling Castle, we can compare our apples with their description.

"Large. Round, flat, regular, with some well rounded ribs."

I wouldn't say these were especially large, but they're larger than some of our other apples.  They do seem to be flattened top to bottom, and round if you look at them end-on. 

From the underside the rib crowns are only slightly visible as rounded humps.

"Bright light green, pea green is a good description, ripening to light yellow, pinky or light brown flush, russet marks on skin. No stripes although Taylor notes that some specimens at an exhibition had a ‘bright red flush and dark red broken stripes’."

Ours are definitely a pea green as the "base" color.  However, they seem to have a lot more red on them than the description indicates, though the note by Taylor suggests red is occasionally present. The red and yellow flushes are clearly overlaid on top of the green, with some matte brown streaks, which I take to be the russet marks.

"Lenticels fairly conspicuous as russet dots.  Skin smooth, can become greasy in store."

The lenticels are the "pores" and can be easily seen here on these apples as little brown dots.  The skin is smooth, and I did notice the ones I put away for a week got a lot shinier after being stored. 

"Cavity wide, deep, russeted." 

The cavity is the hollow around the stem.  I don't see a lot of russet here but maybe a little bit. The cavity looks fairly normal - I don't know whether it's especially wide or deep.

"Stalk short, thick and usually just outside cavity,  although the occasional stalk is longer."

This seems about right.  We had several nicely shaped stems, quite thick at the base, and a couple with swollen, folded stems as seen here.

"Basin medium depth and often with beading. Smooth with skin sometimes slightly puckered into Eye.  Eye open or part open."

The basin is the dip inward at the bottom of the apple where the calyx, or "eye" is.   I don't know whether this is "medium depth" but I think it looks gorgeous. 

"Sepals broad, erect and convergent.  Tips often broken off."

The sepals flank the sides of the basin.  These are the remains of the flower that swelled and became a fruit.  I cannot possibly comment.

"Flesh white and juicy."

Yes, and yes.  Very crisp, clean, firm and tart.   

"Tube cone, Stamens median, Core axile or abaxile"

I'm gonna skip this one.

"Tree not vigorous, spreading."

Our tree is definitely not vigorous.  The branches arch into contorted shapes and the tree is weak and leaning.  It has been secured to a post, but I don't know how effective this is.

It does seem to be a prolific bearer, though, considering its size.  I had suggested when we first moved to the house that we may want to cut this one down.  It didn't produce any apples last year, and it looked like it was about to fall over.  It was overgrown in a tangle with blackberry vines and part of the hedge had fallen over into it.

I'm glad we gave it a chance, because it's one of our favorites now.  Is it a Stirling Castle?  Who can tell for sure?