crab tree

a tree bearing crab apples.

Origin of crab tree

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50

If you find a crab-apple on a tree, you may be sure that the tree is a crab-tree.

Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters |Various
Any tree planted in "our set," if it had been but a crab-tree, would have tempted Mr. Avenel's Eve to jump at its boughs.

My Novel, Complete |Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Tis not the crab-tree faced World neither that makes mine sour.

The Mermaid Series. Edited by H. Ellis. The best plays of the old dramatists. Thomas Dekker. Edited, with an introduction and notes by Ernest Rhys. |Thomas Dekker
Rupert was lying under the crab-tree, and Henrietta was reading to him, when I went away.

A Great Emergency and Other Tales |Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

As, in a moment of exasperation my grandmother once said of her, “Our Jinnet is dried up like a crab-tree in the east wind!”

The Dew of Their Youth |S. R. Crockett