Bach Flower Database

Botany: Malus pumila, Malus sylvestris
Production: Boiling Method
Represents: Order

Crab apple is associated with a desire for order, purity and cleanliness. Crab apple personalities are extremely sensitive to the "higher order" of things and desire to have a place for all things.

Bach believed that this sensitivity to order extended to their emotions, too. Crab apple personalities are the "emotional filters" because they, according to Bach's theories, absorb and cleanse the emotional energies of everyone around them.

A negative crab apple state, on the other hand, is marked by an unusually high attention paid to a relatively unimportant detail. In the negative state, the person becomes fixated on one small part of a problem while ignoring the rest, even at the expense of more important issues.

Negative crab apple personalities often manifest this attention in matters of their own health. Negative crab apples crave cleanliness and purity and will obsess over unseen (and often imagined) toxins, germs and pollutants.

Imagine a young mother fixated on unseen "bugs" in her home. She uses a variety of traps, sprays and powders in an effort to kill, trap and dive away all the roaches, ants and other pests that she suspects are lurking just out of sight. She's never actually seen bugs in her home but she's sure they're there.

While she may indeed have the most bug-free home in the neighborhood, she certainly does not have one of the cleanest. All those sprays and powders have left her home's air full of actual toxins. Every soft surface in her home is laden with pesticide residue--including the carpet her young children crawl around on.

But our woman can't focus on that right now. All she knows is that she must rid her home of bugs.

This woman is a negative crab apple state. Her fixation on a small problem blinds her to the larger (and more real) problem of indoor air pollution and toxic residues.

The Positive Crab Apple State

In a positive crab apple state, it is easy to accept that while order is important, it is never permanent. The positive crab apple state is marked by an acceptance of the impermanence of all things and an acceptance of this cycle.