The Elusive Colorado Orange
If you were searching for the elusive Colorado Orange apple would you not find it a hopeful sign to find an orange apple on an old tree with an orange cat? We did. It was also in a tree that the owner claimed to be a Colorado Orange. The owner's story was credible. The age and location of the orchard added up. All this was hopeful, but we needed more. We had once thought that a gold standard of apple identification was have an old timer know and tell you an apple by name, but we have since learned that it is commonplace to have apple names misplaced and misremembered over the passage of time. Such a story played out when we thought we had found the lost Colorado Orange several years back. Not only one, but many old timers called it a Colorado Orange, but genetic fingerprinting matched it to York Imperial. So we had this tree DNA tested too. The results were very hopeful. It has "unique unknown" genetics meaning although it is a grafted tree, it does not match to any other named cultivar located in the USDA apple collection that grows in Geneva, New York.
USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection
Apple identification the old fashioned way can be tricky. Sometimes apples that are the same, look different, and apples that are different, look the same. Sometimes you think you know an apple then it changes its ways depending on region grown, location in canopy, stage of ripening, and growing conditions. Some degree of variation is represented in the four available watercolor paintings of the Colorado Orange which were done by four separate USDA artists during the early 1900's. What is most consistent is the apple's oblate shape. Overall, we are looking for a medium to large sized, oblate, yellow apple, sometimes blushed orange, often ribbed, often with russet cavity and russet dots. Written historical records describe it as a yellow or orange, late winter apple .
It is not uncommon for folks to share their very best specimens when wanting help with apple identification. Just like we did. We showed you a photo of the orange colored apple with orange cat. What we need to also tell you is all the other apples on the tree were yellow and not quite as gorgeous as the one we chose to showcase.
After comparing the possible Colorado Orange apples to the watercolors, including cutting them open and comparing the insides, we had an added degree of confidence of having found what we were looking for. If only we could match it to a known horticultural specimen. But how to do that if all were lost?
A Saved Wax Apple Collection
This is where the story turns to apples picked from a 100 year old tree meeting wax apples made at the beginning of the 20th century. For years, every time we made a research trip to the CSU archives we would wander to the old agriculture building to view a small display of wax apples made by the late Professor Miriam Palmer, replicas of actual apples that won awards at Colorado's early horticultural fairs. Were there more wax apples? Hanging above the display was a Miriam Palmer painting of many more apples including the Colorado Orange. Long story short, after many trips and knocks on the door we never were able to meet with the now retired Professor Hughes to inquire more, but the door finally opened one afternoon and we introduced ourselves to the new Professor of Horticulture, Mark Uchanski. And sitting in the office, in boxes, was an entire wax apple collection not unwrapped it turns out since the early 1970's! We immediately contacted Linda Meyer at the CSU archives. Think our enthusiasm was contagious. The collection is now preserved in well padded boxes, archived and in order, along with their original index cards listing growers name and date. (The finer details of this collection are for another story)
A few days ago, we were able to view the collection. We took actual apple samples from the possible Colorado Orange to compare to a wax cast of a horticulture specimen that grew over a 100 years ago. Yes, there was a Colorado Orange in the box! Its shape and color match to the real life apples. We cannot taste or smell or cut it open for comparison, of course, but this may be as close as we get. Now we are 98% sure give or take 3% we have found the elusive Colorado Orange apple.
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Originally Posted by wacojoe
The sweet corn from there is outstanding as well. I still go back home every year, often to hunt in the hills around Sedona. My wife when we were looking for her Coues deer one year.
