Rome Beauty

type: Cooking, Culinary, Cider, Pie, Sauce

synonyms: Faust's Rome Beauty, Foust's Rome Beauty, Gillett's Seedling, Roman, Red Roman, Roman Beauty, Rome, Phoenix, Royal Red, Starbuck, Imperatore, Ohio Red Rome

identification: Medium to large size, uniformly round and slightly ribbed near the eye. The skin is glossy with a yellow-green base colour extensively washed with bright red flushes and stripes of bright carmine. Colour on the sun exposed side is solid dark red. Scattered light-coloured lenticels. The stem is long and thick, set in a deep, wide and russet-lined cavity. Thick skin.

characteristics: Flesh is pale greenish-yellow, firm, sometimes very hard, fine-grained. Somewhat tart.

uses: An excellent cooking apple. Flavour improves with cooking and it holds its shape well. Wonderful fried apple slices, also pies and sauce. Sometimes used in cider blends.

origins: Originally known as Gillet’s Seedling, the chance seedling was found in 1816 by Joel Gillett, a carpenter and shoemaker by trade, among some 100 young apple trees he had brought with him by flatboat from Putnam Nursery in Marietta, Ohio (U.S.A.), to start an orchard at Quaker’s Flat, a few kilometres from Huntington Beach. Since it did not match the rest of the shipment, he gave the young tree to his son, Alanson Gillett, who planted it along the bank of the river. Several years later, when it was found to produce a unique fruit, his cousin, Horatio Nelson Gillett, took cuttings from the tree and began to propagate them. First described in print in the January, 1846 issue of the "Western Farmer and Gardener" with the comments that "the Rome Beauty or Gillet, is a seedling taken from the nursery of Israel Putnam, late of Union township, Washington county, about twenty years since, and is now extensively cultivated along the Ohio River. It goes safely to New Orleans, and there commands a better price than any apple send from Marietta or its vicinity." It is believed to be a seedling of Westfield Seek-No-Further .

cultivation: Moderately vigorous, upright with a tendency to grow weeping branches like a willow. Tip bearer. Starts to bear fruit quite young and is a reliable annual bearer.

progeny: Montgomery , Crandall

mutations: Barkley Red Rome , Double Red Rome Beauty , Glengyle Red , Red Rome Beauty , Ruby Rome Beauty Del Red Rome

cold storage: It keeps well for up to four months in cold storage, then becomes soft and somewhat mealy.

vulnerabilities: Very susceptible to scab, fire blight, rust and mildew. Tolerant of canker. Susceptible to water core.

harvest: In the middle of the fifth period (160 to 170 days after petal drop). The fruit hangs well at maturity with minimal fall.

notes: Proctorville, Ohio, claims to be the home town of the Rome Beauty apple.