American crab apple - Malus coronaria

There are a lot of plants in my own backyard that I'd like to work on IDing here. This is the first. American crab apple or wild crab apple or sweet crab apple ... let's just go with Malus coronaria. This tree caught my eye because the fruit have turned a beautiful yellow / gold color this fall (and presumably every fall). I'm not fully convinced it's M. coronaria though. From what I saw, it lacks the thorn-like structures at the end of the twigs. That might be just based on the branch I pulled off the tree, or it might be some sort of cultivar. Or perhaps I just got it wrong.

Sources used:
GoBotany
Trees of New York State Native and Naturalized
Trees of Eastern North America (Princeton Guides)

Changing the focus of this blog

I started this long neglected blog to write down ideas I had as worked my way through getting my PhD in Ecology and Evolution. I've since gotten said degree, finished my postdoc, and started as an assistant professor at Pace University in New York. I've also started a different blog (of sorts) using Github pages. 

So where does that leave this site? I had thought of continuing to neglect it for a while, until I finally just closed it all together. But today, I had another idea. You see, while I fancy myself a plant ecologist, I'm not especially good at knowing the names of many plants. I've wanted to get better at this for a long time, and perhaps some day I will. So I'm going to use this space to post pictures of plants I try to ID.