Buckingham

synonyms: Bachelor, Byers, Byers Red, Equinetelee (see Equinetelee ), Henshaw, Jackson’s Red, King (please see King ), Fall Queen, Fall Queen of Kentucky, Frankfort Queen, Iola, Ladies Favorite of Tennessee, Large Summer Pearmain, Lexington Queen, Oxeye, Queen (there is also a cultivar that goes by the name Queen ), Red Horse, Red Gloria Mundi, Winter Cheese, Winter Queen (there is also a cultivar with this name. Please see Winter Queen )

identification: Large, round and slightly conical. The skin is thick and smooth with a yellow base colour almost completely blushed red and marked with red stripes over which are whitish lenticels. The stem is very short and stout, set in a moderately deep and narrow, russetted cavity. The calyx is large and often slightly open, set in a large and wide, pleated basin.

characteristics: Flesh is yellow, firm, somewhat coarse-grained, tender and juicy. Sprightly.

origins: The Buckingham likely emerged in the American south in the latter half of the 1700s was spread throughout the region by the waves of settlers. According to Creighton Lee Calhoun, author of "Old Southern Apples" (published 1995, 2011) it was first listed as being grown in the garden of Colonel John Myers in 1777 in Louisa County, Virginia (U.S.A.) under the name Byer's Apple or Byer's Red. It was later named Queen by Edward Darnaby who started a nursery in Kentucky. was first described as the Winter Queen by William Coxe listed it as Winter Queen in his 1817 edition of "A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees and the Management of Orchards and Cider." S.A. Beach in his "Apples of New York" (1902) states "Origin unknown, by some said to have come originally from Louisa County, Va., by others from North Carolina. It has long been known from Southern New Jersey southward through Virginia and westward through the Ohio valley." Dr. John A. Warder listed it as Buckingham in his "American Pomology" (1867) with the comments: "This favorite southern apple, from Louisa County, Virginia, has worked its way northward into public favor at rapid rate, under the influence of railways and Polological Societies. It was first presented to the American Society at the Philadelphia meeting, in 1860, when it was figured and reported on by the Committee on Native Fruits, to some of whom... it was as familiar as familiar as household words. This fruit was brought by settlers to Southern Illinois, and thence distributed, by taking up the sprouts that formed about the base of stocks, and setting them out for an orchard. I have some of these growing and they make nice plants."

cultivation: Moderately vigorous. Produces crops annually. Does best in areas of hot, long summer growing seasons. On its own root system, the tree grows shallow roots which frequently push up through the soil to form shoots which can be removed and replanted for propagation.

cold storage: Keeps up to five months.

harvest: Ready for harvest in the middle of the fifth period.