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Apples - a rare chimera: Gala

I was contacted recently by John Caesar, who lives near Lincoln. He sent some fascinating pictures of an apple chimera he found in a pack of Gala apples from a supermarket, which are shown below.









A chimera is a plant with regions characteristic of both parents. Famous chimeras are broom-laburnam, hawthorn-medlar, and many ornamental variegated plants, but chimeras in apple fruits are rare; this is the first one I've seen. It obviously represents a mistake in growth by the plant.

The parents of Gala are Kidd's Orange Red and Golden Delicious. The non-Gala part of the apple looks very like Kidd's Orange:




To my surprise I found some chimeras from my Allens Everlasting tree - most of the apples are entirely russet, but a few of them are half russet, half not. The russet halves have the best flavour; the smooth parts are rather watery.

apple chimera, allens everlasting. ..... apple chimera, allens everlasting. ..... apple chimera, allens everlasting.


UPDATE.... PINK LADY CHIMERA
An interesting picture of an apple chimera from a commercial pack of Pink Lady; picture sent by Andrea Meek of Victoria, Australia. Reproduced by permission....many thanks, Andrea.



15 Aug 13

There's quite a good article on chimeras in Wikipedia, and there is a discussion about chimeras in potatoes (Golden Wonder / Langworthy) on this site. Click on the link Potatoes and Dragons to see this. A couple more pictures on this site here.

You'll find more pictures if you type the words

Brogdale chimera

into a search engine.

compiled by Nigel Deacon / Diversity website

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