POMEGRANATE. The pomegranate (Punta Granatum) is of exceptional interest by reason of its structure, its history, and its utility. The genus is the only representative of the family Punicaceae. The plant forms a tree of small stature, or a bush, with opposite or alternate, shining, lance-shaped leaves, from the axils of some of which proceed the brilliant scarlet flowers. These are raised on a short stalk, and consist of a thick fleshy cylindrical or bell-shaped calyx-tube, with five to seven short lobes at the top. From the throat of the calyx proceed five to seven roundish, crumpled, scarlet or crimson petals, and below them very numer ous slender stamens. The pistil consists of two rows of carpels placed one above another, both rows embedded in, and partially inseparate from, the inner surface of the calyx-tube. The fruit, which usually attains the size of a large orange, consists of a hard leathery rind, enclosing a quantity of pulp derived from the coats of the numerous seeds. This pulp, filled with refreshing acid juice, constitutes the chief value of the tree. The more highly cultivated forms contain more of it than the wild or half-wild varieties.
The tree is wild in Afghanistan, north-western India, and the districts south and south-west of the Caspian, but it has been so long cultivated that it is difficult to say whether it is really native in Palestine and the Mediterranean region. The antiquity of the
tree as a cultivated plant is evidenced by the references to the fruit in the Old Testament, and in the Odyssey, where it is spoken of as cultivated in the gardens of the kings of Phaeacia and Phrygia. The fruit is frequently represented on ancient Assyrian and Egyptian sculptures, and had a religious significance in connec tion with several Oriental cults, especially the Phrygian cult of Cybele. It was well known to the Greeks and Romans, who were acquainted with its medicinal properties and its use as a tanning material. The name given by the Romans, malum punicum, indi cates that they received it from Carthage, as indeed is expressly stated by Pliny ; and this circumstance has given rise to the no tion that the tree was indigenous in northern Africa. On a review of the whole evidence, botanical, literary and linguistic, Alphonse de Candolle (Origin of Cultivated Plants) decides in favour of its source in Persia and the neighbouring countries.