Adam's Apples

With a name like an Old Timey singer (or perhaps contortionist), the Smoky Mountain Limbertwig sports a beautiful deep red blush.  ¶  That color nearly covers all of the otherwise green-tinged yellow peel of these medium-to-large apples.  ¶  The apple is only moderately ribbed, and there are tiny light lenticels scattered in the glossy blush.

Do you admire this shapely carnelian-red apple with the light lenticel dots mixed with squiggles of russet? If so, you and I see the world in the same way.  ¶  If this apple disturbs you or freaks you out, then you are stuck, I am afraid, with the perfect shiny waxed globes at your supermarket.  ¶  These Red Royal Limbertwigs are medium and large, with understated ribbing. One of these has a closed calyx while the other's is wide open: don't ask me what that means.  ¶  Although off the tree for several weeks, these feel promisingly firm. Their faint aroma is sweet and floral.

This is an interesting looking apple by many metrics. Large and round, with really no perceptible ribbing, the Caney Fork Limbertwig is a light lemon yellow about two-fifths blushed with the mottled orange red that you see. Dark lenticels brood within the blush. They are raised bumps in the unblushed yellow. And check out that long, skinny stem.

I don't know how large these generally get, but my Limbertwigs (named for bendy, droopy branches) are on the small side of medium, stock sturdy Hobbits of the apple world. They are just a little oblate, with ruddy red cheeks over a light spring green. There is considerable iridescent russet and also a fair amount of sooty blotch. One sample has a patch of the black microdots known as flyspeck . (This cosmetic blemish has nothing to do with flies.) Many orderly tiny white lenticels are clearly visible in the blush. These are tactile, little rough bumplets. Off the tree for weeks if not months, Limbertwig is rock hard and promising.