Fruit

by Blackburne-Maze, Peter; Self, Brian

• ISBN13: 9781552977804
• ISBN10: 1552977803
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Firefly Books Ltd

Summary

A visual feast of stunning illustrations and authoritative text.Fruit appears in art, mythology, and nearly every religious belief. The uses of fruit are varied: for food, drink, paint pigment, decoration, and medicine. The cultivation of fruit encouraged the development of plant propagation methods, grafting, hybridization, and selective breeding to produce ever improved varieties.In this book Blackburne-Maze challenges myths such as the story of Johnny Appleseed whose real name was John Chapman. The fable that he indiscriminately scattered seeds is admittedly the worst way to propagate fruit trees. In truth he established a chain of successful apple nurseries that stretched from Pennsylvania to Indiana.Fruit is illustrated with 300 large, striking and superbly reproduced color illustrations from the Lindley Library of the Royal Horticultural Society. Created by the finest botanical artists, these graceful illustrations are notable for their historical value in chronicling the evolution of fruit and as masterpieces in their own right. Included are varieties of fruit now extinct or no longer in widespread cultivation.The book is organized into the 4 major fruit groups and covers 61 varieties: Pome (apples, pears, etc.) Stone (plum, cherry, peach, etc.) Berry (currant, blueberry, etc.) Exotic (fig, citrus, olive, almond, etc.)A companion volume to the critically acclaimed and extremely popular, Flora, this book will appeal to gardeners, art lovers, and food connoisseurs.

Author Biography

Peter Blackburne-Maze is a leading expert in the history and cultivation of fruit. He is the author of many books and regularly contributes to Garden News, The Kitchen Garden, and The Garden (the Royal Horticultural Society's journal).

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Pome- Apple- Pear- Qunice- Medlar

Stone- Plum- Cherry- Peach- Nectarine- Apricot- Mulberry

Berry- Currant- Gooseberry- Blueberry- Bilberry- Blackberry- Dewberry- Strawberry- Raspberry- Myrtle Berry- Elderberry- Cranberry

Exotic- Fig- Citrus- Melon- Pineapple- Grape- Banana- Mango- Feijoa- Breadfruit- Durian- Custard Apple- Starfruit- Tamarind- Kiwano- Pitaya- Persimmon- Papaya- Sapodilla- Guava- Passionfruit- Pomegranate- Date- Mangosteen- Langstat- Loquat- Rambutan- Longan- Lychee- Chinese Lantern- Cape Gooseberry- Olive- Avocado- Coconut- Pistachio- Cashew- Walnut- Almond

Biographies

Illustrations

Index

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

IntroductionWe can all list a range of different fruit -- apples, pears, plums, bananas and oranges immediately spring to mind, for example. From a botanical point of view, however, a fruit is defined as a 'more or less fleshy pod, capsule or some other body produced by a plant in which it forms and carries its seeds'. The flesh makes the fruit look attractive to eat, and this helps seed distribution. Indeed, many a good seedling fruit tree started its life as a core or stone thrown from a car window and onto a fertile road verge. The feature of sweetness isn't crucial to the definition of a fruit (tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows are all perfectly good fruit), but in the popular sense of the word a 'fruit' has to be sweet, and this is the definition we will use in this book.HOW IT ALL BEGANAll the fruits in cultivation today are selections, mutations, hybrids or descendants of genera and species that originally grew in the wild. Prehistoric fruity remains have been found all round the world, including seeds of wild strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, sloe, bird cherry and crab apple. The spread of wild fruits in the world's temperate regions was dependent on the movement of the ice caps: as the earth's temperature rose, growing conditions improved. And, in the warmer regions, natural seed dissemination and other methods of propagation further promoted the spread of wild fruits across the globe.The presence or absence of naturally growing food has largely dictated the advance of human beings into previously unpopulated areas. It is only comparatively recently that settlers have brought their own food plants with them. This phenomenon has taken place throughout the ages, and nowadays there are very few people in the world reliant on naturally occurring foodstuffs.More than five thousand years ago (perhaps even earlier), the climate was favourable for agriculture, so huge areas were cultivated. Most temperate fruits originated from Central Asia and what was then Asia Minor -- the Caucasus, Turkestan and the Black Sea region -- where vast areas of woodland with wild pears, crab apples and cherry plums still exist (indeed, some of the wild grapes in Central Asia are identical to today's cultivated varieties). Further afield, there are quinces in Azerbaijan, apricots in Armenia and Syria, along with cherry plums, bird cherries and medlars.This abundance of natural food in what became known as the Fertile Crescent (reaching from Iran to south of the Caspian Sea, to Turkey, through Palestine and into Egypt) encouraged nomadic tribes to settle in the area. This often brought new blood into an already flourishing civilization, therefore improving it further. During this period, the peach (Prunus persica) came from China (not Persia), where it has now been cultivated for more than 4000 years.The first fruit to be stored for any length of time was probably the plum. These would have been sun-dried and then packed away for future use. Apples, too, were stored. They could have been dried as well, but were also laid on straw and placed in dry and cool surroundings.Certainly as far back as 500 BC, Ancient Greek and Roman writers were writing about fruit and wine. Already both cultures were raising fruit, as well as growing vines from cuttings, and even then it was known that this kind of vegetative propagation was necessary amongst fruit plants in order to produce progeny identical to that of the parent. About two thousand years ago, fruit had become a highly important crop throughout the Mediterranean area. Excavations have shown pottery, glass, even the walls of houses, decorated with fruits. Evidence of orchards, nurseries and fruit markets were plentiful around Pompeii and Herculaneum, for example. Before the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, the slopes of the volcano were home to thriving horticultural and viticultural industries.It was also a