From the Living Museum
Ambrosia
- Origin
- Near Cawston, British Columbia, Canada
- Era
- 1980s
- Type / use
- Dessert · Fresh eating
History & Stories
Chance seedling found by Wilfrid Mennell in Sally Mennell's orchard at Cawston, British Columbia, budded in 1990 and later patented and commercialized 1,2. Medium-large, highly attractive red apple with creamy flesh. Exceptionally crisp and juicy with a distinctive sweet, low-acid flavor often compared to pear or honeydew melon. What makes it unique is its modern commercial success while still retaining high eating quality — one of the few late-20th-century introductions that connoisseurs still respect. Good storage and relatively clean skin.
Folklore & Name
Modern Canadian discovery from the Similkameen Valley 1; name evokes the pleasing, ambrosial quality of the fruit. No deep folklore, but represents successful late-20th-century chance seedling selection.
Digging into the History
Below my own notes, here is what the old fruit books and today’s collections record about this apple, kept apart from the stories people tell.
What we know
Ambrosia was a chance seedling in the orchard of Wilfrid and Sally Mennell near Cawston, in British Columbia's Similkameen Valley. Margaret Webb, writing in The Tyee (2009, from her book From Apples to Oysters), tells how the Mennells were replanting Sally's orchard with high-density dwarf trees when a seedling came up among the expensive dwarf trees. Wilfrid "did not pull it" 1. They later obtained a patent and developed the variety with the Okanagan Plant Improvement Company (PICO) 1,2. Wilfrid's brother Brian was the first to plant it commercially 1.
The competing accounts
- The Tyee, 2009 1: a seedling that sprang up in Sally and Wilfrid Mennell's orchard at Cawston, B.C., during replanting, and that Wilfrid chose to keep.
- U.S. Plant Patent 10,789 2: a chance seedling "of unknown parentage" found in an orchard formerly planted with Golden Delicious and Starking Delicious, which the patent names as possible parents.
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): a chance seedling with Golden Delicious and Starking Delicious as its likeliest parents. The two accounts agree on the place and the people, and the patent's guess at the parents rests on the trees that grew there before; it has not been confirmed.
What we think: stories & traditions
The pickers knew first. Wilfrid told Webb that when the tree first fruited, the pickers stripped it clean before he could check it. "Pickers hate eating apples. So then I really began paying attention" 1. The next year the Mennells got there first and found that its flesh stayed white long after cutting 1. Wilfrid named it Ambrosia, the food of the gods 1.
The original tree, which the family calls the Mother Tree, was still standing when Webb visited, its trunk scarred from years of cutting graftwood 1.
Sources
- Margaret Webb, "The Mother Tree," The Tyee (18 November 2009). www.thetyee.ca/Life/2009/11/18/MotherTree/
- U.S. Plant Patent 10,789, "Apple tree named 'Ambrosia'" (1999). patents.google.com/patent/USPP10789P/en
Curious about Ambrosia?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.