Summer Pound

type: Culinary, Dessert, Pie

synonyms: Orange, Orange Pie, Summer Orange, Pound Royal (this is also used as a synonym for a number of other varieties), Summer Pound Royal, Summer Rhode Island Greening

summary: Makes excellent apple pies.

identification: Large, round conic. The skin colour is green maturing to yellow, sometimes with an orange blush on the sun-exposed faces. Marked with light-coloured, sometimes green lenticels. The stem is medium long and medium stout, set deep and moderately wide cavity which is usually russetted. The calyx is small and closed, set in a narrow and somewhat deep basin.

characteristics: The flesh is white, fine-grained, tender. Juicy and sweet with just enough tartness to be refreshing.

origins: The variety was found growing as a chance seedling in a homeowner's field in Chatham County, North Carolina during the mid-1800s. It was listed in nursery catalogues through the latter half of the 1800s and into the 1900s but failed to establish a sufficient following to survive the onslaught of more modern market apples and gradually faded away. In 1983, American heirloom apple authority, the late Lee Calhoun undertook the search for a surviving tree of this variety and eventually found one growing in a field not far from where it had been originally found growing almost a century earlier in Chatham County. From 1920 to 1928, Summer Orange was listed in an old catalog from a nursery located in Chatham County. According to Creighton Lee Calhoun, the Summer Orange is identical to the Fall Orange in all respects and he listed the Summer Orange as a synonym for Fall Orange in his book, "Old Southern Apples" first published in 1995. No information is given for the origin of the apple and very little on its existence, although Archibald F. Barron lists a variety called Summer Orange in the 1883 report "British Apples: Report of the Committee of the National Apple Congress". He describes it as "Medium, flat, orange yellow, flushed, sweet, early, third quality." Sounds temptingly familiar.

cultivation: Precocious

cold storage: Does not keep well.

harvest: Ready for harvest starting early in the third period and the crop ripens progressively over the course of six weeks.