Pomegranate
The pomegranate is a fruit-bearing, deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae, that grows to between tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it originated from the Iranian plateau including Iran, the Caucasus, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pomegranate was first domesticated by ancient Iranians in the Persian plateau and nearby regions about 5,000 years ago. It is extensively cultivated for its fruit.
Pomegranate was later introduced and exported from the Iranian plateau to other parts of Asia including Iraq, Turkey, India, Africa, and Europe. It was also introduced into Spanish America in the late 16th century and into California by Spanish settlers in 1769.
Although the pomegranate is indigenous to Iran and its nearby regions, it is also nowadays cultivated across the West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, north and tropical Africa, the drier parts of Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean Basin, United States and Chile. The fruit is typically in season in the Northern Hemisphere from September to February, and in the Southern Hemisphere from March to May.
Pomegranate molasses is a key ingredient in traditional Persian cuisine, where it is used to add a rich sweet-sour flavour to dishes such as stews, sauces, and marinades, most notably in classic recipes like fesenjān, kabab torsh and zeytoon parvardeh. The pomegranate and its juice are variously used in baking, cooking, juice blends, garnishes, nonalcoholic drinks, and cocktails.
Etymology
The name pomegranate derives from medieval Latin pōmum, apple and grānātum, seeded. Possibly stemming from the old French word for the fruit, pomme-grenade, the pomegranate was known in early English as "apple of Granada", a term that today survives only in heraldic blazons.Garnet derives from Old French grenat by metathesis, from Medieval Latin granatum as used in a different meaning "of a dark red colour". This derivation may have originated from pomum granatum, describing the colour of pomegranate pulp, or from granum, referring to red dye, cochineal.
The modern French term for pomegranate, grenade, has given its name to the military grenade.
Pomegranates were colloquially called wineapples or wine-apples in Ireland, although this term has fallen out of use. It still persists at the Moore Street open-air market in central Dublin.
Description
The pomegranate is a shrub or small tree growing high, with multiple spiny branches. It is long-lived, with some specimens in France surviving for 200 years. The leaves are opposite or subopposite, glossy, narrow oblong, entire, long, and broad.The flowers are bright red or white, and or more in diameter, with three to seven petals. Some fruitless cultivars are grown for the flowers alone.
The flower's anthers close around the stigma until maturity, the ovaries are divided internally into special compartments or locules of many suspended ovules covered in septum.
Fruit
The pomegranate fruit husk is red-purple with an outer, hard pericarp, and an inner, spongy mesocarp, which comprises the fruit's inner wall where seeds attach. Membranes of the mesocarp are organised as nonsymmetric chambers that contain seeds which are embedded without attachment to the mesocarp, also a result of fertilisation to the divided ovary. Pomegranate seeds are characterised by having sarcotesta, thick fleshy seed coats derived from the integuments or outer layers of the ovule's epidermal cells. The number of seeds in a pomegranate can vary from 200 to about 1,400.Botanically, the fruit is a berry with edible seeds and pulp produced from the ovary of a single flower. The fruit is variable in size, from diameter in wild plants with a rounded shape and thick, reddish husk.
In mature fruit, the juice obtained by compressing the seeds yields a tart flavour due to low pH and high contents of polyphenols, which may cause a red indelible stain on fabrics. The pigmentation of pomegranate juice primarily results from the presence of anthocyanins and ellagitannins.
Cultivation
P. granatum is grown for its fruit crop, and as ornamental trees and shrubs in parks and gardens. Mature specimens can develop sculptural twisted bark, multiple trunks, and a distinctive overall form. 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 can be prone to root decay from fungal diseases. They can tolerate moderate frost, down to about.Insect pests of the pomegranate can include the butterflies Virachola isocrates, Iraota timoleon, and Deudorix epijarbas, and the leaf-footed bug Leptoglossus zonatus, and fruit flies and ants are attracted to unharvested ripe fruit.
Propagation
P. granatum reproduces sexually in nature, but can be propagated using asexual reproduction. Propagation methods include layering, hardwood cuttings, softwood cuttings, and tissue culture. Required conditions for rooting cuttings include warm temperatures within the 18–29 °C range and a semihumid environment. Rooting hormone increases rooting success rate, but is not required. Grafting is possible but impractical and tends to yield low success rates.Varieties
P. granatum var. nana is a dwarf variety of P. granatum popularly planted as an ornamental plant in gardens and larger containers, and used as a bonsai specimen tree. It could well be a wild form with a distinct origin. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.The only other species in the genus Punica is the Socotran pomegranate, which is endemic to the Socotran archipelago of four islands located in the Arabian Sea, the largest island of which is also known as Socotra. The territory is part of Yemen. It differs in having pink flowers and smaller, less sweet fruit.
Cultivars
P. granatum has more than 500 named cultivars, but has 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 colour, seed coat colour, the hardness of seed, maturity, juice content and its acidity, sweetness, and astringency.
Production and export
The leading producers globally are India and China, followed by Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, the US, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Spain. During 2019, Chile, Peru, Egypt, Israel, India, and Turkey supplied pomegranates to the European market. Chile was the main supplier to the United States market, which has a limited supply from Southern California. China was self-sufficient for its pomegranate supply in 2019, while other South Asia markets were supplied mainly by India. Pomegranate production and exports in South Africa competed with South American shipments in 2012–2018, with export destinations including Europe, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, and Russia. South Africa imports pomegranates mainly from Israel.History
The pomegranate is native to the Persia and it was first domesticated by ancient Iranians in the Persian Plateau and nearby regions about 5,000 years ago. Archaeological and historical evidence shows that the pomegranate, especially its blossom, was a sacred and symbolic element in ancient Persian culture from prehistoric times through the Achaemenid period in about 500 BC, associated with fertility, abundance, royal authority, and the deities Mithra and Anahita. There is a petroglyph at Persepolis showing that a pomegranate flower in the hand of an Achaemenian king, highlighting its ritual and symbolic significance in imperial iconography. The pomegranate also played a ritual role in seasonal and ancient Iranian ceremonies such as Yalda Night, where it symbolised rebirth, light, and continuity in ancient Iranian belief systems.In Pakistan, it grows wild between 1,000–2,000 metres altitude, mainly in the western part of the country. Pomegranates have been cultivated throughout the Middle East, India, and the Mediterranean region for several millennia, and it is also cultivated in the Central Valley of California and in Arizona. Pomegranates may have been domesticated as early as the fifth millennium BC, as they were one of the first fruit trees to be domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean region.
Remains of the fruit dating to the Neolithic period have been found at Gezer in Israel, and carbonised pomegranate exocarp has been recovered from early Bronze Age levels at Tell es-Sultan in the West Bank. Additional remains from this period have been found at Arad and Gezer in Israel. Evidence from the Late Bronze Age includes pomegranate remains at Hala Sultan Tekke in Cyprus and the site of Tiryns in Greece. A large, dry pomegranate was found in the tomb of Djehuty, the butler of Queen Hatshepsut in Egypt; Mesopotamian records written in cuneiform mention pomegranates from the mid-third millennium BC onwards.
Waterlogged pomegranate remains have been identified at the circa 14th century BC Uluburun shipwreck off the coast of Turkey. Other goods on the ship include perfume, ivory and gold jewelry, suggesting that pomegranates at this time may have been considered a luxury good. Other archaeological finds of pomegranate remains from the Late Bronze Age have been found primarily in elite residences, supporting this inference. During the Iron Age, the pomegranate was a frequent decorative motif in Israelite material culture, appearing on ancient artifacts.
It is also extensively grown in southern China and Southeast Asia, whether originally spread along the Silk Road route or brought by sea traders. Kandahar is famous in Afghanistan for its high-quality pomegranates.
Although not native to Korea or Japan, the pomegranate is widely grown there, and many cultivars have been developed. It is widely used for bonsai because of its flowers and for the unusual twisted bark the older specimens can attain. The term "balaustine" is also used for a pomegranate-red colour.
Spanish colonists later introduced the fruit to the Caribbean and America. However, in the English colonies, it was less at home: "Don't use the pomegranate inhospitably, a stranger that has come so far to pay his respects to thee", English Quaker Peter Collinson wrote to the botanist John Bartram in Philadelphia, 1762. "Plant it against the side of thy house, nail it close to the wall. In this manner it thrives wonderfully with us, and flowers beautifully, and bears fruit this hot year. I have twenty-four on one tree... Doctor Fothergill says, of all trees this is most salutiferous to mankind".
The pomegranate had been introduced as an exotic to England the previous century, by John Tradescant the Elder, but the disappointment that it did not set fruit there led to its repeated introduction to the American colonies, even New England. It succeeded in the South: Bartram received a barrel of pomegranates and oranges from a correspondent in Charleston, South Carolina, 1764. John Bartram partook of "delitious" pomegranates with Noble Jones at Wormsloe Plantation, near Savannah, Georgia, in September 1765. Thomas Jefferson planted pomegranates at Monticello in 1771; he had them from George Wythe of Williamsburg.