Pomegranate

A pomegranate is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing to between five and eight meters tall. The pomegranate is native to the Iranian Plateau, and has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times. It is widely cultivated throughout Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, North India, the drier parts of southeast Asia, peninsular Malaysia, the East Indies, the Mediterranean and Southern Europe and tropical Africa.Introduced into Latin America and California by Spanish settlers in 1769, pomegranate is now cultivated in parts of California and Arizona for juice production.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the fruit is typically in season from September to February. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is in season from March to May.

An ancient fruit, pomegranate is mentioned in Europe as early as the Iron-Age Greek Mythology in the Homeric hymns. Yet, it has still to reach mainstream prominence as a consumer fruit in commercial markets of North America and the Western Hemisphere.

Cultivars

More than 500 cultivars of pomegranate have been named, but such fruits evidently have considerable synonymy in which the same genotype is named differently across regions of the world.

Several characteristics between pomegranate genotypes vary for identification, consumer preference, preferred use, and marketing, the most important of which are fruit size, exocarp color (ranging from yellow to purple, with pink and red most common), aril color (ranging from white to red), hardness of seed, maturity, juice content and its acidity, sweetness, and astringency.

Foliage and fruit
The leaves are opposite or sub-opposite, glossy, narrow oblong, entire, 3–7 cm long and 2 cm broad. The flowers are bright red, 3 cm in diameter, with four to five petals (often more on cultivated plants). Some fruitless varieties are grown for the flowers alone. The edible fruit is a berry and is between a lemon and a grapefruit in size, 5–12 cm in diameter with a rounded hexagonal shape, and has thick reddish skin and around 600 seeds.The seeds and surrounding pulp, ranging in color from white to deep red, are called arils. There are some cultivars which have been introduced that have a range of pulp colors such as purple.

Punica granatum nana is a dwarf variety of P. granatum popularly used as bonsai trees and as a patio plant. The only other species in the genus Punica is the Socotran pomegranate (Punica protopunica), which is endemic to the island of Socotra. It differs in having pink (not red) flowers and smaller, less sweet fruit. Pomegranates are drought-tolerant, and can be grown in dry areas with either a Mediterranean winter rainfall climate or in summer rainfall climates. In wetter areas, they are prone to root decay from fungal diseases. They are tolerant of moderate frost, down to about −10°C (14°F).[citation needed]

The name "pomegranate" derives from Latin pomum ("apple") and granatus ("seeded"). This has influenced the common name for pomegranate in many languages (e.g., German Granatapfel, seeded apple). In early English, the pomegranate was known as "apple of Grenada" -- a term which today survives only in heraldic blazons. This was probably a folk etymology, confusing Latin granatus with the Spanish city of Granada. The genus name Punica is named for the Phoenicians, who were active in broadening its cultivation, partly for religious reasons. In classical Latin, where "malum" was broadly applied to many apple-like fruits, the pomegranate's name was malum punicum or malum granatum, the latter giving rise to the Italian name melograno, or less commonly melagrana...Read more