Apples Of Eden

Saving The Wild Ancestor Of Modern Apples

The ancient woodlands of Kyrgyzstan - and of the four neighboring former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan - are home to more than 300 wild fruit and nut trees. One of these threatened species, Malus sieversii, is one of the key ancestors of all cultivated apples grown and eaten around the world.

So rich and unique is this species that on one wild apple tree you can see more variation in apple form than you see in the entire cultivated apple crop in Britain. You can get variation in fruit size, shape, color, flavor, even within the tree, and certainly from tree to tree.