Apple

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

This article is about the fruit, other meanings are listed at Apple (disambiguation)

Red apples

An apple is a kind of fruit.

The apple fruit is usually red on the outside when the apple is ready to eat. A ripe^[1] apple might also be green, brown or yellow. The shape of an apple is a ball. An apple is about 18 centimeters around.

The skin of the apple is thin. Apples are hard fruits. Apples can taste sweet. Apples can taste sour. Apples have seeds in the middle.

People first grew apple trees in Central Asia. Apples are now grown in most of the cooler parts of the world.

Sometimes apples are eaten after they are cooked. Often apples are eaten uncooked. Apples can also be made into drinks. Apple juice and apple cider are apple drinks.

The flesh of the fruit is firm with a taste anywhere from sour to sweet. Apples used for cooking are sour, and need to be cooked with sugar, while other apples are sweet, and do not need cooking. There are some seeds at the core, that can be removed with a tool that removes the core, or by carefully using a knife.

The scientific name of the apple tree genus in the Latin language is Malus. Most apples that people grow are of the Malus domestica species.

Most apples are good to eat raw (not cooked), and are also used in many kinds of baked foods, such as apple pie. Apples are cooked until they are soft to make apple sauce.

Apples are also made into the drinks apple juice and cider. Usually, cider contains a little alcohol, about as much as beer. The regions of Brittany in France and Cornwall in England are known for their apple ciders.

If one wants to grow a certain type of apple it is not possible to do this by planting a seed from the wanted type. The seed will have DNA from the apple that the seeds came from, but it will also have DNA from the apple flower that pollinated the seeds, which may well be a different type. This means that the tree which would grow from planting would be a mixture of two. In order to grown a certain type of apple, a small twig, or 'scion', is cut from the tree that grows the type of apple desired, and then added on to a specially grown stump called a rootstock. The tree that grows will only create apples of the type needed.

1 In the United Kingdom
2 In North America
3 Varieties of apples
4 What Family
5 See also
6 Notes
7 External links

[edit] In the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom there are about 3000 different types of apples. The most common apple type grown in England is the 'Bramley seedling', which is a popular cooking apple.

Apple orchards are not as common as they were in the early 1900s, when apples were rarely brought in from other countries. Organisations such as Common Ground teach people about the importance of rare and local varieties. 'Apple Day' is celebrated each October in many places.

[edit] In North America

Many apples are grown in the United States and Canada. In many areas where apple growing is important, people have huge celebrations:

Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival - held six days every spring in Winchester, Virginia.
Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival - held five days every spring (May-June) in Nova Scotia.
Washington State Apple Blossom Festival - held two weeks every spring (April-May) in Wenatchee, Washington.