Pomegranate

A pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing between five and eight meters tall. The pomegranate is mostly native to the Iranian Plateau and the Himalayas in north Pakistan and Northern India. It has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times, and today, is widely cultivated throughout Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Egypt, China, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the drier parts of southeast Asia, the Mediterranean region of Southern Europe, and tropical Africa.^[1] Introduced into Latin America and California by Spanish settlers in 1769, pomegranate is now cultivated in parts of California and Arizona for juice production.^[2]
In the Northern Hemisphere, the fruit is typically in season from September to February.^[3] In the Southern Hemisphere, it is in season from March to May.
The pomegranate is a very ancient fruit, mentioned in the Homeric Hymns and the Book of Exodus.^[4] Yet, it has still to reach mainstream prominence in the commercial markets of North America and the Western Hemisphere.

Lady Finger

Lady finger, or ladyfinger may refer to:
Plants:

• Okra
• Polygonum persicaria - more commonly called "lady's thumb"
• Mammillaria elongata - a species of cactus in the genus Mammillaria
• Lady Finger Banana, A variety of banana also known as Sucrier, Sugar Banana, or Date Banana.

Other:

• Ladyfinger (biscuit)
• "Ladyfingers", a song by Luscious Jackson from their 1999 album Electric Honey
• Ladyfinger Peak - another name for Bublimotin, a granite spire above the Hunza valley in northern Pakistan
• Extremely small firecrackers, often arranged in bunches which explode in rapid succession.

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family (also known as the nightshades). The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were first introduced outside the Andes region four centuries ago, and have become an integral part of much of the world's cuisine. It is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize.^[1] Long-term storage of potatoes requires specialised care in cold warehouses.^[2]
Wild potato species occur throughout the Americas, from the United States to Uruguay.^[3] The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated independently in multiple locations,^[4] but later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru (from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago.^[5][6][7] Following centuries of selective breeding, there are now over a thousand different types of potatoes.^[6] Of these subspecies, a variety that at one point grew in the Chiloé Archipelago (the potato's south-central Chilean sub-center of origin) left its germplasm on over 99% of the cultivated potatoes worldwide.^[8][9]
Following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish introduced the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. The staple was subsequently conveyed by European mariners to territories and ports throughout the world. The potato was slow to be adopted by distrustful European farmers, but soon enough it became an important food staple and field crop that played a major role in the European 19th century population boom.^[7] However, lack of genetic diversity, due to the very limited number of varieties initially introduced, left the crop vulnerable to disease. In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-like oomycete Phytophthora infestans, spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine. Nonetheless, thousands of varieties persist in the Andes, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley, and a dozen or more might be maintained by a single agricultural household.^[10]
The annual diet of an average global citizen in the first decade of the 21st century included about 33 kg (73 lb) of potato. However, the local importance of potato is extremely variable and rapidly changing. It remains an essential crop in Europe (especially eastern and central Europe), where per capita production is still the highest in the world, but the most rapid expansion over the past few decades has occurred in southern and eastern Asia. China is now the world's largest potato-producing country, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes are harvested in China and India.^[11]

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae (palm family). It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos.^[2] The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word.^[3]
Found across much of the tropics, the coconut is known for its great versatility as seen in the many domestic, commercial, and industrial uses of its different parts. Coconuts are part of the daily diet of many people. Its endosperm is known as the edible "meat" of the coconut; when dried it is called copra. The oil and milk derived from it are commonly used in cooking and frying; coconut oil is also widely used in soaps and cosmetics. The clear liquid coconut water within is a refreshing drink and can be processed to create alcohol. The husks and leaves can be used as material to make a variety of products for furnishing and decorating. It also has cultural and religious significance in many societies that use it.

Chikoo Fruit

Sapodilla is known as chikoo ("चिक्कू" or "chiku," "चीकू,") in India and Pakistan and sapota in some parts of India (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh), sobeda/sofeda (সবেদা or সফেদা) in eastern India and Bangladesh, sabudheli ("ސަބުދެލި") in Maldives, sawo in Indonesia, hồng xiêm (lit. "Siamese persimmon"), lồng mứt or xa pô chê in Vietnam, lamoot (ละมุด) in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, sapodilla in Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago, naseberry in Jamaica, sapathilla or rata-mi in Sri Lanka, zapote in Colombia, El Salvador, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, níspero in Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, dilly in The Bahamas, naseberry in the rest of the Caribbean, sapoti in Brazil and Haiti, chico or tsiko in the Philippines and chico sapote in Mexico, Hawaii, southern California and southern Florida. ^[4][5]

Fruit

Fruit, cross-section

In Kelantanese Malay, the fruit is called "sawo nilo" which is closer to the original name than the standard Malay "ciku". In Chinese, the name is mistakenly translated by many people roughly as "ginseng fruit" (人參果), though this is also the name used for the pepino, an unrelated fruit; it should instead be "heart fruit" (人心果) because it is shaped like the heart.

Peach Fruit

The peach tree (Prunus persica) is a species of Prunus native to China that bears an edible juicy fruit called a peach. It is a deciduous tree growing to 4–10 m (13–33 ft) tall, belonging to the subfamily Prunoideae of the family Rosaceae. It is classified with the almond in the subgenus Amygdalus within the genus Prunus, distinguished from the other subgenera by the corrugated seed shell.
The leaves are lanceolate, 7–16 cm (2.8–6.3 in) long, 2–3 cm (0.79–1.2 in) broad, pinnately veined. The flowers are produced in early spring before the leaves; they are solitary or paired, 2.5–3 cm diameter, pink, with five petals. The fruit has yellow or whitish flesh, a delicate aroma, and a skin that is either velvety (peaches) or smooth (nectarines) in different cultivars. The flesh is very delicate and easily bruised in some cultivars, but is fairly firm in some commercial varieties, especially when green. The single, large seed is red-brown, oval shaped, approximately 1.3–2 cm long, and is surrounded by a wood-like husk. Peaches, along with cherries, plums and apricots, are stone fruits (drupes).
The scientific name persica, along with the word "peach" itself and its cognates in many European languages, derives from an early European belief that peaches were native to Persia (now Iran). The modern botanical consensus is that they originate in China, and were introduced to Persia and the Mediterranean region along the Silk Road before Christian times.^[1] Cultivated peaches are divided into clingstones and freestones, depending on whether the flesh sticks to the stone or not; both can have either white or yellow flesh. Peaches with white flesh typically are very sweet with little acidity, while yellow-fleshed peaches typically have an acidic tang coupled with sweetness, though this also varies greatly. Both colours often have some red on their skin. Low-acid white-fleshed peaches are the most popular kinds in China, Japan, and neighbouring Asian countries, while Europeans and North Americans have historically favoured the acidic, yellow-fleshed kinds.

Kiwi Fruit

Kiwifruit

The kiwifruit, often shortened to kiwi in many parts of the world, is the edible berry of a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia.
The most common cultivars of kiwifruit are oval, about the size of a large hen's egg (5–8 cm / 2–3 in long and 4.5–5.5 cm / 1¾–2 in diameter). It has a fibrous, dull brown-green skin and bright green or golden flesh with rows of tiny, black, edible seeds. The fruit has a soft texture and a unique flavour, and today is a commercial crop in several countries, mainly in Italy, New Zealand, Brazil and Chile.

Grape

A Grape (pronounced /ˈgrejp/) is a non-climacteric fruit that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, and grape seed oil. Grapes are also used in some kinds of confectionery. Grapes are typically an ellipsoid shape, specifically a prolate spheroid.

Mango

Mango is a typical Matthew Caruana loxx ta baqra botany-taxonomy.htm Mango: botany and taxonomy, HorticultureWorld]</ref> belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous species of tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. While other Mangifera species (e.g. horse mango, M. foetida) are also grown on a more localized basis, Mangifera indica – the common mango or Indian mango – is the only mango tree commonly cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions, and its fruit is distributed essentially world-wide.
In several cultures, its fruit and leaves are ritually used as floral decorations at weddings, public celebrations and religious ceremonies.

Apple

The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family (Rosaceae). It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans.
The tree originated in Western Asia, where its wild ancestor, the Alma, is still found today. There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples, resulting in a range of desired characteristics. Cultivars vary in their yield and the ultimate size of the tree, even when grown on the same rootstock.^[2]
At least 55 million tonnes of apples were grown worldwide in 2005, with a value of about $10 billion. China produced about 35% of this total.^[3] The United States is the second-leading producer, with more than 7.5% of world production. Iran is third, followed by Turkey,

Carrot

The carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus, Etymology: Middle French carotte, from Late Latin carōta, from Greek καρότον karōton, originally from the Indo-European root ker- (horn), due to its horn-like shape) is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh. The most commonly eaten part of a carrot is a taproot, although the greens are edible as well. It is a domesticated form of the wild carrot Daucus carota, native to Europe and southwestern Asia. The domestic carrot has been selectively bred for its greatly enlarged and more palatable, less woody-textured edible taproot.
It is a biennial plant which grows a rosette of leaves in the spring and summer, while building up the stout taproot, which stores large amounts of sugars for the plant to flower in the second year. The flowering stem grows to about 1 metre (3 ft) tall, with an umbel of white flowers that produce a fruit called a mericarp by botanists, which is a type of schizocarp.^[1]

Pineapple

Pineapple (Ananas comosus) is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit, which is actually a multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries.^[1] Pineapples are the most used edible member of the Bromeliaceae family and are, therefore, the most widespread bromeliad fruit in cultivation. Besides being produced for consumption, it can be grown as an ornamental or houseplant, obtained from the crown of a supermarket fruit.^[2] Some sources say that the plant will flower after about 24 months and produce a fruit during the following six months,^[3] while others indicate a 20-month timetable.^[2]
Pineapple can be consumed fresh, canned or juiced and can be used in a variety of ways. It is popularly used in desserts, salads (usually tropical fruit salads, but it can vary), jams, yogurts, ice creams, various candies, as a complement to meat dishes and in fruit cocktail. The popularity of the pineapple is due to its sweet-sour taste.
In the Philippines, pineapple leaves are used as the source of a textile fiber called piña.

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted seeds, called coffee beans, of the coffee plant. Coffee beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees in over 70 countries, cultivated primarily in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. 'Green Unroasted' coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world.^[1] Coffee can have a stimulating effect on humans due to its caffeine content. It is one of the most-consumed beverages in the world.^[2]
Coffee has played a crucial role in many societies. The energizing effect of the coffee bean plant is thought to have been discovered in the northeast region of Ethiopia, and the cultivation of coffee first expanded in the Arab world.^[3] The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen in southern Arabia.^[3] From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia, and to the Americas.^[4] In East Africa and Yemen, it was used in religious ceremonies. As a result, the Ethiopian Church banned its secular consumption, a ban in effect until the reign of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia.^[5] It was banned in Ottoman Turkey during the 17th century for political reasons,^[6] and was associated with rebellious political activities in Europe.
Coffee berries, which contain the coffee seed, or "bean", are produced by several species of small evergreen bush of the genus Coffea. The two most commonly grown are the highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the 'robusta' form of the hardier Coffea canephora. The latter is resistant to the devastating coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix). Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried. The seeds are then roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor. They are then ground and brewed to create coffee. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways.
An important export commodity, coffee was the top agricultural export for twelve countries in 2004,^[7] and it was the world's seventh-largest legal agricultural export by value in 2005.^[8] Some controversy is associated with coffee cultivation and its impact on the environment. Many studies have examined the relationship between coffee consumption and certain health conditions; whether the overall effects of coffee are ultimately positive or negative has been widely disputed.^[9] The method of brewing coffee has been found to be important to its health effects.^[10]

Cup of Tea

Tea is the agricultural product of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of various cultivars and sub-varieties^[2] of the Camellia sinensis plant, processed and cured using various methods. "Tea" also refers to the aromatic beverage prepared from the cured leaves by combination with hot or boiling water,^[3] and is the common name for the Camellia sinensis plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. ^[4] It has a cooling, slightly bitter, astringent flavour which many enjoy.^[5]
There are at least six varieties of tea: white, yellow, green, oolong, black, and post-fermented teas^[6] of which the most commonly found on the market are white, green, oolong, and black. Some varieties, such as traditional oolong tea^[7] and Pu-erh tea, a post-fermented tea, can be used medicinally.^[8]
The term "tea" is sometimes loosely used to refer to "herbal teas", which are an infusion or tisane of leaves, flowers, fruit, herbs, or other plant material that contains no Camellia sinensis.^[9] In East Asian culture, the term "red tea" has always been used to represent what the West understands as "black tea".^[10] This can be confusing in the English speaking world because the same term is now also used to represent the drink made with the South African rooibos plant which contains no Camellia sinensis.

Honey

Honey (English pronunciation: /ˈhʌni/) is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees (the genus Apis) is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey produced by other bees and insects has distinctly different properties.
Honey bees form nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive. Beekeeping practices encourage overproduction of honey so that the excess can be taken without endangering the bee colony.
Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose and has approximately the same relative sweetness as that of granulated sugar.^[1][2] It has attractive chemical properties for baking, and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners.^[1] Most microorganisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6.^[3] However, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to infants as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant's immature intestinal tract, leading to illness and even death^[4] (see Health hazards below).
Honey has a long history of human consumption and is used in various foods and beverages as a sweetener and flavoring. It also has a role in religion and symbolism. Flavors of honey vary based on the nectar source, and various types and grades of honey are available. It is also used in various medicinal traditions to treat ailments. The study of pollens and spores in raw honey (melissopalynology) can determine floral sources of honey.^[5] Because bees carry an electrostatic charge, and can attract other particles, the same techniques of melissopalynology can be used in area environmental studies of radioactive particles, dust or particulate pollution.^[6][7]

Honey is created by bees as a food source. In cold weather or when fresh food sources are scarce, bees use their stored honey as their source of energy.^[8] By contriving for bee swarms to nest in artificial hives, people have been able to semi-domesticate the insects, and harvest excess honey. In the hive (or in a wild nest) there are three types of bee: a single female queen bee, a seasonally variable number of male drone bees to fertilize new queens, and some 20,000 to 40,000 female worker bees.^[9] The worker bees raise larvae and collect the nectar that will become honey in the hive. Leaving the hive, they collect sugar-rich flower nectar and return.
In the hive the bees use their "honey stomachs" to ingest and regurgitate the nectar a number of times until it is partially digested.^[10] The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion until the product reaches a desired quality. It is then stored in honeycomb cells. After the final regurgitation, the honeycomb is left unsealed. However, the nectar is still high in both water content and natural yeasts, which, unchecked, would cause the sugars in the nectar to ferment.^[8] The process continues as bees inside the hive fan their wings, creating a strong draft across the honeycomb, which enhances evaporation of much of the water from the nectar.^[8] This reduction in water content raises the sugar concentration and prevents fermentation. Ripe honey, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed.^[8]

Almond

The almond (Prunus dulcis, syn. Prunus amygdalus Batsch., Amygdalus communis L., Amygdalus dulcis Mill.), is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by the corrugated shell (endocarp) surrounding the seed.
The fruit of the almond is not a true nut, but a drupe, consisting of an outer hull and a hard shell with the seed ("nut") inside. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the seed. Almonds are commonly sold shelled, i.e. after the shells are removed, or unshelled, i.e. with the shells still attached. Blanched almonds are shelled almonds that have been treated with hot water to soften the seedcoat, which is then removed to reveal the white embryo.

Tree

The almond is a small deciduous tree, growing to between 4 and 10 meters in height, with a trunk of up to 30 centimetres in diameter. The young twigs are green at first, becoming purplish where exposed to sunlight, then grey in their second year. The leaves are 3–5 inches long,^[1] with a serrated margin and a 2.5 cm (1 in) petiole. The flowers are white or pale pink, 3–5 cm diameter with five petals, produced singly or in pairs before the leaves in early spring.^[2][3]
Almond trees become productive and begin bearing fruit after five years. The fruit is mature in the autumn, 7–8 months after flowering.^[2][3]

 Nut

In botanical terms, the almond fruit is not a nut, but a drupe 3.5–6 cm long. The outer covering or exocarp, fleshy in other members of Prunus such as the plum and cherry, is instead a thick leathery grey-green coat (with a downy exterior), called the hull. Inside the hull is a reticulated hard woody shell (like the outside of a peach pit) called the endocarp. Inside the shell is the edible seed, commonly called a nut. Generally, one seed is present, but occasionally there are two^{[citation needed]}.

Water Melon

Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.), family Cucurbitaceae) can be both the fruit and the plant of a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) plant originally from southern Africa, and is one of the most common types of melon. This flowering plant produces a special type of fruit known by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind (exocarp) and fleshy center (mesocarp and endocarp); pepos are derived from an inferior ovary, and are characteristic of the Cucurbitaceae. The watermelon fruit, loosely considered a type of melon (although not in the genus Cucumis), has a smooth exterior rind (green, yellow and sometimes white) and a juicy, sweet interior flesh (usually pink, but sometimes orange, yellow, red and sometimes green if not ripe). It is also commonly used to make a variety of salads, most notably fruit salad.

Orange

An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × ​sinensis (Citrus Sinensis (L.) Osbeck) and its fruit.^[2] It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world.^[3]
The orange is a hybrid of ancient cultivated origin, possibly between pomelo (Citrus maxima) and mandarin (Citrus reticulata).^[4] It is an evergreen flowering tree generally growing to 9–10 m in height (although very old speciments have reached 15 m).^[5] The leaves are arranged alternately, are ovate in shape with crenulate margins and are 4–10 cm long.^[6] The orange fruit is a hesperidium, a type of berry.^[7]
Orange trees are widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical climates for the delicious sweet fruit, which is peeled or cut (to avoid the bitter rind) and eaten whole, or processed to extract orange juice, and also for the fragrant peel.^[8] In 2008, 68.5 million tons of oranges were grown worldwide, primarily in Brazil and the State of Florida in the US.^[9]
Oranges probably originated in Southeast Asia^[8] and were cultivated in China by 2500 BC. The fruit of Citrus sinensis is called sweet orange to distinguish it from Citrus aurantium, the bitter orange. The name is thought to ultimately derive from the Sanskrit^[10] for the orange tree, with its final form developing after passing through numerous intermediate languages.
In a number of languages, it is known as a "Chinese apple" (e.g. Dutch Sinaasappel, "China's apple", or northern German Apfelsine).^[11] (In English, however, "Chinese apple" generally refers to the pomegranate.^[12]).

Tomato

The tomato is a savory, typically red, edible fruit, as well as the plant (Solanum lycopersicum) which bears it. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler climates.
The tomato fruit is consumed in diverse ways, including raw, as an ingredient in many dishes and sauces, and in drinks. While it is botanically a fruit, it is considered a vegetable for culinary purposes (as well as by the United States Supreme Court, see Nix v. Hedden), which has caused some confusion. The fruit is rich in lycopene, which may have beneficial health effects.
The tomato belongs to the nightshade family. The plants typically grow to 1–3 metres (3–10 ft) in height and have a weak stem that often sprawls over the ground and vines over other plants. It is a perennial in its native habitat, although often grown outdoors in temperate climates as an annual.

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red.
Almost all modern edible parthenocarpic bananas come from the two wild species Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana or hybrids Musa acuminata × balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific names Musa sapientum and Musa paradisiaca are no longer used.
Banana is also used to describe Enset and Fe'i bananas, neither of which belong to the Musa genus. Enset bananas belong to the genus Ensete while the taxonomy of Fe'i-type cultivars is uncertain.
In popular culture and commerce, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet "dessert" bananas. By contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called plantains or "cooking bananas." The distinction is purely arbitrary and the terms 'plantain' and 'banana' are sometimes interchangeable depending on their usage.
They are native to tropical South and Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea.1