Description
Origin of Name
Botaniocal Information
Apple Breeding
Pollination
Maturation And Harvest
Food Value
Medicinal Use
Description
Apple tree (Malus domestica) Scientific classification Kingdom:
Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Rosales
Family: Rosaceae Subfamily: Maloideae Genus: Malus Species: M.
domestica Binomial name Malus domestica Borkh. The apple is the
pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the
rose family Rosaceae. It is one of the most widely cultivated tree
fruits. The tree is small and deciduous, reaching 5-12 m tall, with
a broad, often densely twiggy crown. The leaves are alternately
arranged simple ovals 5-12 cm long and 3-6 cm broad on a 2-5 cm
petiole with an acute tip, serrated margin and a slightly downy
underside. Flowers are produced in spring simultaneous with the
budding of the leaves. The flowers are white, five petaled, 2.5-3.5
cm in diameter, white with a pink tinge that gradually fades. The
fruit matures in autumn, and is typically 5-9 cm diameter (rarely
up to 15 cm). The centre of the fruit contains five carpels
arranged in a five-point star, each carpel containing one to three
seeds.
Origin of Name
The word "apple" comes from the Old English word ppel, which in
turn has recognisable cognates in a number of the northern branches
of the Indo-European language family. The prevailing theory is that
"apple" may be one of the most ancient Indo-European words (*abl-)
to come down to English in a recognisable form. The scientific name
malus, on the other hand, comes from the Latin word for apple, and
ultimately from the archaic Greek malon (melon in later dialects).
The legendary placename Avalon is thought to come from a Celtic
evolution of the same root as the English "apple"; the name of the
town of Avellino, near Naples in Italy is likewise thought to come
from the same root via the Italic languages. Linnaeus assigned the
apple to the genus Pyrus, along with pears and quinces. Philip
Miller subsequently separated the apple into its own genus, a
division repeatedly ratified over many years.
Botaniocal_Information
Wild Malus sieversii apple in Kazakhstan Apple cut horizontally,
showing seedsThe wild ancestor of Malus domestica is Malus
sieversii. It has no common name in English, but is known in
Kazakhstan, where it is native, as 'alma'; in fact, the region
where it is thought to originate is called Alma-Ata, or 'father of
the apples'. This tree is still found wild in the mountains of
Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and
Xinjiang, China. For many years, there was a debate about whether
M. domestica evolved from chance hybridisation among various wild
species. Recent DNA analysis by Barrie Juniper, Emeritus Fellow in
the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University and others,
has indicated, however, that the hybridisation theory is probably
false. Instead, it appears that a single species still growing in
the Ili Valley on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan mountains at
the border of northwest China and the former Soviet Republic of
Kazakhstan is the progenitor of the apples we eat today. Leaves
taken from trees in this area were analyzed for DNA composition,
which showed them all to belong to the species M. sieversii, with
some genetic sequences common to M. domestica. Some individual M.
sieversii, recently planted by the US government at a research
facility, resist many diseases and pests that affect domestic
apples, and are the subject of continuing research to develop new
disease-resistant apples. Other species that were previously
thought to have made contributions to the genome of the domestic
apples are Malus baccata and Malus sylvestris, but there is no hard
evidence for this in older apple cultivars. These and other Malus
species have been used in some recent breeding programmes to
develop apples suitable for growing in climates unsuitable for M.
domestica, mainly for increased cold tolerance. The apple tree was
perhaps the earliest tree to be cultivated, and apples have
remained an important food in all cooler climates. To a greater
degree than other tree fruit, except possibly citrus, apples store
for months while still retaining much of their nutritive value.
Winter apples, picked in late autumn and stored just above
freezing, have been an important food in Asia and Europe for
millennia, as well as in Argentina and in the United States since
the arrival of Europeans.
Apple Breeding
Like most perennial fruits, apples are ordinarily propagated
asexually by grafting. Seedling apples are different from their
parents, sometimes radically. Most
