What's in a name ...(part 1)?

Hunt’s Duke of Gloucester is, according to Charles Martell, author of the Native Apples of Gloucestershire, a “very pleasant little eating apple that should appeal to children on account of its small size”. As you’d expect, he’s right. Quite a few cross our path every autumn and they are sweet, crisp, yellow and small. Scrumptious.

Puckkrupp Pippin, on the other hand, is bigger, is a yellowing green (or a greening yellow), has a crisp texture and a rich taste. And different to a Hunts’s in more detailed ways too:

  • the Hunt’s stalk is longer than Puckrupp’s;

  • the Hunt’s eye is closed, the Puckrupp’s open;

  • the Hunt’s basin is shallow and narrow, the Puckrupp’s is shallow and wide.

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So, enough differentiation to ensure that the two couldn’t or shouldn’t be confused. However, recent DNA tests of Gloucestershire’s apples has revealed that what we all have assumed to be Hunts’ Duke of Gloucester is, in fact, Puckrupp Pippin. And what we all have assumed to be a Puckrupp Pippin is, in fact, a Hunt’s Duke of Gloucester.

Someone, somewhere, seems to have attached the wrong label to the right apple, or the right label to the left apple.

We’re not quite sure what happens next because, for almost everybody in Gloucestershire who knows about such things and in the apple world beyond, Hunt’s Duke of Gloucester is a (fairly common) very tasty, small, yellow apple … and Puckrupp Pippin isn’t. And within that wider apple world, there are other naming issues to be resolved. The Hunt’s and Puckrupp debate may be surprising but it isn’t contentious - both apples come from Gloucestershire so no local rivalries are involved. There’s a very common East Anglian apple that appears to be, according to DNA analysis, the very same as a very common Polish apple … and sorting out who has naming rights over that could well be a fraught affair.

Thanks for reading!



David Lindgren