Inside, the yellowish-green flesh is green and juicy.
This apple has a very sharp tart and sour taste.
The blossoms are usually bright red, though sometimes yellow. The tree tends to produce well in alternating years. It is grown in America, Australia, New Zealand and in the UK.
Cooking Tips
This is a cooking apple good for sauces and pies, Betties and Cobblers. Its taste survives well through cooking. Can be used as a fresh-eating apple after it has been stored for a while to allow the tartness to mellow.
Storage Hints
Sourness mellows in storage. Stores well.
History Notes
Rev. William Blaxton (Blackstone), 1595-1675, a clergyman originally from Lincolnshire, England, moved to Rhode Island from Boston in 1635, having acquired a large stretch of land along the Blackstone and Pawtucket Rivers. He planted Rhode Island’s first orchard there. He found what would become the Rhode Island Greening as a chance seedling growing in his orchard in the 1650s. He named it Blaxton’s Yellow Sweeting, but it later got renamed to Sweet Rhode Island Greening. Even though it was anything but sweet!
Benjamin Franklin reputedly liked this apple. It was importantly commercially in New York State at the end of the 1800s.