Malus crabapples are one of the most important ornamental and economic germplasm resources, providing abundant plant landscape species and favorable research material to exploit the mechanism of color formation, which is due to the diverse colors of its leaves, flowers and fruits as a result of different anthocyanin materials.Anthocyanins are protective pigments that accumulate in plant organs such as fruits and leaves, and are nutritionally valuable components of the human diet, but the mechanism how pH values, temperature, light periods, shading and C/N ration affect anthocyanin accumulation in Malus plants is unknown.In our study, we showed that shading inhibited the accumulation of anthocyanin and the expression of key anthocyanin biosynthesis regulator McMYB10 and anthocyanin biosynthetic genes McF3H.Long light periods increased anthocyanin content and the transcription of McMYB10 and McF3 H.Low temperatures promoted anthocyanin accumulation and the transcription of McMYB10 and anthocyanin biosynthesis genes was gradually activated with decreasing of the temperature.Low pH treatment-induced anthocyanin accumulation is mediated by the variation of mRNA transcription of the anthocyanin biosynthetic genes.High C/N ratios induce anthocyanin pigmentation in leaves, and the expression of the late flavonoid/anthocyanin biosynthetic genes and McMYB10 was more strongly influenced by high C/N ratio.The link between environmental conditions affecting anthocyanin accumulation and the transcription level of the corresponding genes indicated that McMYB1O and late anthocyanin biosynthetic genes were pivotal in the anthocyanin pathway.These results are likely to be useful for future generation of plants with an optimized flavonoid/anthocyanin content or desirable organ coloration of Malus plants.