Early European settlers brought apple seeds and saplings to New Zealand. They carried them across the ocean. They planted them in the new land. Now the apple tree grows in old orchards, hedgerows, and waste places. It reminds us of the people who came and the gardens they made. The apple tree is small. It rarely exceeds ten metres in height. It has a spreading crown and dark, fissured bark. The leaves are oval and toothed. They arrange alternately along the branches. The flowers are white or pink. They appear in spring. They cover the tree in a cloud of petals. The fruit is the story. The apple is red, green, or gold. It is sweet or sharp. It is the fruit of myth and memory. Apple trees have escaped from cultivation in New Zealand. They grow wild along roadsides. They stand in old farmsteads. They occupy corners of fields that were once orchards. These wild trees are living history. They preserve varieties no longer grown commercially. A gnarled old apple tree in an abandoned orchard might be a hundred years old. Its fruit is still sweet. Its blossoms are still pink. The wood of the apple tree is hard, dense, and finely grained. People used it for tool handles, furniture, and barrel ribs. They dried the fruit. They stored it. They made cider. The apple tree was a tree of utility. It belonged to the kitchen garden and the homestead. To see an old apple tree in flower is to see a piece of history. The settlers who planted it are gone. The tree remains. It blossoms every spring. It fruits every autumn. It drops its leaves every winter. It does not know it is a stranger here. It just grows. It blooms. It feeds the birds. The apple tree is not native. It is not endemic. It is not a king or a warrior. It is an immigrant. It is a settler. It is a tree that made a new home in a new land. It has been here for two hundred years. It will be here as long as the orchards are remembered.