Apple is the fruit ( pome) of the genus Malus belonging to the family Rosaceae, and is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits. Table apples are of the species M. domestica or hybrids of it.
1 Botanical origins
Wild Malus sieversii apple in Kazakhstan
The wild ancestor of Malus domestica is Malus sieversii (which has no common name), a tree still found wild in the mountains of central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang Province, ChinaThis article is on the geographic and cultural entity. For other meanings, see China (disambiguation). China ( Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguo, Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) is a country in continental East Asia with some oute. M. sieversii resists many diseases and pests that affect domestic apples, and research with it to develop new disease-resistant apples is continuing.
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 cultivarA cultivar is a cultivated variety of a plant species. Modern cultivars are often, but not necessarily, hybrids between species; they may equally well represent particularly desirable selections from populations of a single species. Cultivars generally ars. 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.
Apples have been a very important food in all cooler climates, and is probably the earliest tree to be cultivated. To a greater degree than other tree fruit, except possibly citrusSpecies ''Citrus maxima Pomelo Citrus medica Citron Citrus reticulata Mandarin & Tangerine Major hybrids ''Citrus x aurantifolia Lime Citrus x aurantium Bitter orange Citrus x bergamia Bergamot Citrus x hystrix Kaffir lime Citrus x ichangensis Ichang lemo, 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 EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se for millennia, and the United States since the arrival of Europeans.
