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''Malus sieversii'' is a wild apple native to the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, eastern Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Northern Afghanistan and Xinjiang, China. It has recently been shown to be the primary 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 Altai Mountains. It is a deciduous tree growing to , very similar in appearance to the domestic apple. Its fruit is the largest of any species of ''Malus'' except ''domestica'', up to 7 cm diameter, equal in size to many modern apple cultivars. Unlike domesticated varieties its leaves go red in autumn: 62.2% of the trees in the wild do this compared to only 2.8% of the 2,170 English cultivated varieties.〔Archetti M. (2009). (Evidence from the domestication of apple for the maintenance of autumn colours by coevolution. ) Proc Biol Sci. 276(1667):2575-80. PMID 19369261〕 The species is now considered vulnerable to extinction. == History and importance == ''Malus sieversii'' has previously been identified as the main contributor to the genome of the cultivated apple (''Malus domestica''), on the basis of morphological, molecular, and historical evidence. A DNA analysis in 2010 confirmed ''M. sieversii'' as the progenitor of the cultivated apple. A third species that has been thought to have made contributions to the genome of the domestic apples is ''Malus baccata'', but there is no evidence for this in older apple cultivars. Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, and formerly its capital, derives its name from the Kazakh word for 'apple' (алма), and is often translated as "full of apples" (the region surrounding Almaty is home to forests of ''Malus sieversii''); ''alma'' is also 'apple' in other Turkic languages, as well as in Hungarian. The Soviet-era name, Alma-Ata, is Kazakh for "Father of Apples." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Malus sieversii」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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