Alma, or malus sieversii, is a plant seemingly native to the area around Kazakhstan which is thought to be the primary modern ancestor of the apple tree. It is thorny and more bush-like than malus domestica, the modern apple tree, and has inconsistent leaf shape, but its fruit is larger than crab apples (thought, by some, to have contributed genetically to the hybridization of the modern apple) and completely edible. Binomial name Malus domestica Borkh. ... Species - Southern Crab - Siberian Crabapple - Sweet Crabapple - Apple - Japanese Crabapple - Oregon Crab - Chinese Crabapple - Prairie Crab - Asian Wild Apple - European Wild Apple Malus, the apples, is a genus of about 30-35 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae, including most importantly the domesticated Orchard or...

The region in Kazahstan thought to have the oldest such plants includes a city literally named "Alma-ata", or "Apple's Father". Almaty (Алматы; formerly known as Alma-Ata, also Verny, Vyernyi (Верный) in Imperial Russia) is a city in Kazakhstan, with a population of 1,168,000. ...

This plant has recently been cultivated by the US government in Cornell, in hopes of finding genetic information of value in the breeding of the modern apple plant. Some, but not all, of the resulting trees -- which are too young, still, to produce much fruit -- show unusual disease resistence. The diversity of their response to disease is, itself, a sign of how much more genetically diverse they are than their domesticated descendants.

Alma apples were first described in 1876 by P. S. Pallus, a German naturallist who saw them growing in the region of the Caucasus, which is, ironically, thought to be the place of origin of the Indo-European tribes who populated most of Europe and much of Asia, becoming ancestors of the Germans, Iranians, Hindu, Romans, and Greeks, among others. It has been suggested that this was the source for the distribution of the apple around ancient civilization. The Caucasus , a region bordering Asia Minor, is located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea which includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... A Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, the predominant religious, philosophical and cultural systems of Bharat (India) and Nepal. ... Roman or Romans has several meanings, primarily related to the Roman citizens, but also applicable to typography, math, and a commune. ...

This plant not only grows well in the Caucasus mountains, but also in other mountain ranges near Kazakh, thriving at altitudes of up to 10,000 feet.

Like the modern apple, its seeds contain hydrogen cyanide, which is both the famous variety of the poison "cyanide" and yet also what gives, in trace amounts, almonds their distinctive flavor. Hydrogen cyanide is a chemical compound with chemical formula H-C≡N. A solution of hydrogen cyanide in water is called hydrocyanic acid or prussic acid. ... A cyanide is any chemical compound that contains the group C≡N, with the carbon atom triple bonded to the nitrogen atom. ...

External Links

History of the Apple