Species
+

Malus ioensis (Alph.Wood) Britton

Iowa crab apple, Iowa crabapple, prairie crab apple, prairie crabapple

Climate known 57 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Malus ioensis, known as the Iowa crab or prairie crabapple, is a species of crabapple tree native to the United States. The most common variety, M. ioensis var. ioensis, is found primarily in the prairie regions of the upper Mississippi Valley. Another variety, M. ioensis var. texana, or the Texas crabapple, is found only in a small region of central Texas.

Text from Wikipedia, “Malus ioensis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Malus

Malus is a genus of about 32–57 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the rose family Rosaceae. It includes the domesticated orchard apple, crabapples, and wild apples.

Text from Wikipedia, “Malus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Rosaceae
Described by
(Alph.Wood) Britton
Native to
Illinois, Iowa, Kansas +13
Wild records
655 in range· 337 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Jul, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
983mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 119 mm (CHELSA)
Light
11–41DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to October in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 983 mm a year, wettest June at 119 mm, driest January at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -20.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Malus angustifolia subsp. plena Hartwig; Malus coronaria subsp. ioensis (Alph.Wood) Likhonos; Malus coronaria var. ioensis (Alph.Wood) C.K.Schneid.; Malus ioensis f. fimbriata A.D.Slavin; Malus ioensis f. plena (Hartwig) Rehder and 18 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to October in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (716 mm of 983 mm) falls in April to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 18.1 °C against a yearly mean of 10.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to April.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 983 mm a year, wettest June at 119 mm, driest January at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

983 mm a year at the habitat, 716 mm of it April to October. Wettest month June at 119 mm, driest January at 40 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 877 mm to 1193 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 41 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -20.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -20.3 °C, the absolute minimum -35.1 °C, about 126 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -7.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -11.9 °C to -2.2 °C), warmest day 28.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -20.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 62% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 1 °C in Jan to 29 °C in Jul; mean night from -7 °C in Jan to 20 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 983 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 518 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -35.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 37.1 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost37.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)-35.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 11–41RH 55–62 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 518 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C1 / -3–73 / -1–1010 / 6–1517 / 14–2022 / 20–2527 / 25–2929 / 27–3228 / 26–3124 / 22–2717 / 15–2110 / 6–142 / -1–8
Night °C-7 / -12–-2-6 / -10–-0-1 / -4–46 / 3–1012 / 10–1517 / 15–2020 / 18–2219 / 17–2215 / 13–179 / 6–112 / -1–6-5 / -9–-1
Rain mm40 / 23–6943 / 26–7164 / 47–9896 / 80–115115 / 96–145119 / 103–144109 / 95–123106 / 81–12391 / 80–10980 / 65–10369 / 51–10451 / 33–85
DLI13 / 12–1619 / 18–2126 / 26–2833 / 32–3437 / 37–3841 / 40–4241 / 40–4236 / 34–3829 / 27–3120 / 18–2313 / 12–1611 / 10–14
RH %62 / 58–6460 / 57–6257 / 56–5855 / 54–5756 / 55–5957 / 56–6058 / 57–5959 / 57–6058 / 56–5857 / 56–5859 / 57–6062 / 59–63

Each figure is the median across the 518 grid cells holding the 606 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 991:1772 (40.425, -91.375). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -35.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -20.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 518 distinct grid cells holding the 606 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 991:1772 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.50_-91.250, lapse-corrected -23 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 175 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeIllinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker42.694, -89.811 · in the densest population, 173 records (26% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 655 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 337 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 622 km away. 31 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 49 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 655 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Malus ioensisMalus ioensisMalus ioensisMalus ioensisMalus ioensisMalus ioensisMalus ioensisMalus ioensis

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Ryan Sorrells, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Rose Zappa, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Malus ioensis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Variation in nuclear DNA content inMalusspecies and cultivated apples
Tatiana C. Tatum, Svetlana Z. Stepanovic, D. P. Biradar, A. Lane Rayburn (2005) · Genome
Flowering Stage and Daytime Affect Scent Emission of Malus ioensis “Prairie Rose”
Junjun Fan, Wangxiang Zhang, Donglin Zhang, Guibin Wang (2019) · Molecules
ITS sequence variation supports the hybrid origin ofMalus toringoidesHughes
Tingting Feng, Zhiqin Zhou, Jianmin Tang, Ming-Hao Cheng (2007) · Canadian Journal of Botany
Hardiness in the apple as correlated with structure and composition
S. A. Beach, F. W. Allen (1915) · Iowa State University Digital Repository (Iowa State University)
Evaluation of Resistance to Apple Blotch (Diplocarpon mali) in Malus Species and Varieties
Kazuyuki Abe, Shigeki Moriya, Hiroshi Iwanami, Satoko Kanematsu (2020) · Horticultural Research (Japan)
Manual of the flora of Jackson County, Missouri
Kenneth Kent Mackenzie, Benjamin Franklin Bush (1902)
Advancing apple genetics research: Malus coronaria and Malus ioensis genomes and a gene family-based pangenome of native North American apples
Anže Švara, Honghe Sun, Zhangjun Fei, Awais Khan (2024) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Botanical survey and assessment of the Illinois Interstate-90 tollway improvement corridor in Boone, Kane, McHenry, and Winnebago Counties
Michael J. Murphy (2007) · Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Malus 8 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 66 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.