Malus sieversii

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Malus sieversii

A Malus sieversii apple

Conservation status

Vulnerable (IUCN)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Rosales
Family:	Rosaceae
Subfamily:	Maloideae
Genus:	Malus
Species:	M. sieversii

Binomial name

Malus sieversii
(Ledeb.) M.Roem.

Malus sieversii is a wild apple native to the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang, China. It has recently been shown to be the sole ancestor of most cultivars of the domesticated apple (Malus domestica). It was first described (as Pyrus sieversii) in 1833 by Carl Friedrich von Ledebour, a German naturalist who saw them growing in the Altay Mountains.

For many years, there was a debate about whether M. domestica evolved from chance hybridization among various wild species. Recent DNA analysis by Barrie Juniper, Emeritus Fellow in the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford University and others, has indicated, however, that the hybridization theory is probably false. Instead, it appears that a single species still growing in the Ili Valley on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan mountains at the border of northwest China and the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan is the progenitor of the apples we eat today. Leaves taken from trees in this area were analyzed for DNA composition, which showed them all to belong to the species M. sieversii, with some genetic sequences common to M. domestica.

It is a deciduous tree growing to 5-12 m tall, very similar in appearance to the domestic apple. Its fruit is the largest of any species of Malus, up to 7 cm diameter, equal in size to many modern apple cultivars.

This plant has recently been cultivated by the United States Agricultural Research Service, in hopes of finding genetic information of value in the breeding of the modern apple plant. Some, but not all, of the resulting trees show unusual disease resistance. The variation in their response to disease on an individual basis is, itself, a sign of how much more genetically diverse they are than their domesticated descendants.

It is named alma in Kazakhstan; the region in Kazakhstan thought to have the oldest such plants includes the city of Alma-ata, or "Father of Apples".

Tree

Fruit

[edit] References

World Conservation Monitoring Centre (1998). Malus sieversii. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Listed as Vulnerable (VU B1+2c v2.3)