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Prunus
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Prunus
Prunus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs from the family Rosaceae. The genus includes plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots and almonds (collectively stonefruit). The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the temperate regions of North America, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Eurasia and Africa, There are about 340 accepted species as of March 2024[update].
Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for their sweet, fleshy fruit and for decorative purposes of their flowers. Prunus fruit are drupes, or stone fruits. The fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible while the endocarp itself forms a hard, inedible shell called the pyrena ("stone" or "pit"). This shell encloses the seed (or "kernel"), which is edible in some species (such as sweet almonds), but poisonous in many others (such as apricot kernels). Besides being eaten off the hand, most Prunus fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and the seeds for roasting.
Members of the genus are either deciduous or evergreen. A few species have spiny stems. The leaves are simple, alternate, usually lanceolate, unlobed, and often with nectaries on the leaf stalk along with stipules. The flowers are usually white to pink, sometimes red, with five petals and five sepals. Numerous stamens are present. Flowers are borne singly, or in umbels of two to six or sometimes more on racemes. The fruit is a fleshy drupe (a "prune") with a single relatively large, hard-coated seed (a "stone").
Within the rose family Rosaceae, it was traditionally placed as a subfamily, the Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Prunoideae"), but was sometimes placed in its own family, the Prunaceae (or Amygdalaceae). More recently, Prunus is thought to have evolved from within a much larger clade now called subfamily Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Spiraeoideae").
The oldest fossils confirmed to belong to Prunus date to the Eocene, and are found across the Northern Hemisphere. Older potential Late Cretaceous records are unconfirmed.
The earliest known fossil Prunus specimens are wood, drupe, seed, and a leaf from the middle Eocene of the Princeton Chert of British Columbia, Canada. Using the known age as calibration data, a partial phylogeny of some of the Rosaceae from a number of nucleotide sequences was reconstructed. Prunus and its sister clade Maloideae (apple subfamily) has been suggested to have diverged 44.3 million years ago which is within the Lutetian, or older middle Eocene. Stockey and Wehr report: "The Eocene was a time of rapid evolution and diversification in Angiosperm families such as the Rosaceae ...." The oldest fossil species is Prunus cathybrownae from the Klondike Mountain Formation.
The Princeton finds are among a large number of angiosperm fossils from the Okanagan Highlands dating to the late early and middle Eocene. Crataegus is found at three locations: the McAbee Fossil Beds, British Columbia; the Klondike Mountain Formation around Republic, Washington, and the Allenby Formation around Princeton, British Columbia, while Prunus is found at those locations plus the Coldwater Beds of Quilchena, British Columbia and Chu Chua Formation around Chu Chua, British Columbia. A review of research on the Eocene Okanagan Highlands reported that the Rosaceae were more diverse at higher altitudes. The Okanagan highlands formations date to as early as 52 mya, but the (approximate) 44.3 mya date[citation needed] might still apply. The authors state that "the McAbee flora records a diverse early middle Eocene angiosperm-dominated forest."
In 1737, Carl Linnaeus used four genera to include the species of modern Prunus—Amygdalus, Cerasus, Prunus, and Padus—but simplified it to Amygdalus and Prunus in 1758. Since then, the various genera of Linnaeus and others have become subgenera and sections, as all the species clearly are more closely related. Liberty Hyde Bailey said: "The numerous forms grade into each other so imperceptibly and inextricably that the genus cannot be readily broken up into species."
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Prunus
Prunus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs from the family Rosaceae. The genus includes plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots and almonds (collectively stonefruit). The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the temperate regions of North America, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Eurasia and Africa, There are about 340 accepted species as of March 2024[update].
Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for their sweet, fleshy fruit and for decorative purposes of their flowers. Prunus fruit are drupes, or stone fruits. The fleshy mesocarp surrounding the endocarp is edible while the endocarp itself forms a hard, inedible shell called the pyrena ("stone" or "pit"). This shell encloses the seed (or "kernel"), which is edible in some species (such as sweet almonds), but poisonous in many others (such as apricot kernels). Besides being eaten off the hand, most Prunus fruit are also commonly used in processing, such as jam production, canning, drying, and the seeds for roasting.
Members of the genus are either deciduous or evergreen. A few species have spiny stems. The leaves are simple, alternate, usually lanceolate, unlobed, and often with nectaries on the leaf stalk along with stipules. The flowers are usually white to pink, sometimes red, with five petals and five sepals. Numerous stamens are present. Flowers are borne singly, or in umbels of two to six or sometimes more on racemes. The fruit is a fleshy drupe (a "prune") with a single relatively large, hard-coated seed (a "stone").
Within the rose family Rosaceae, it was traditionally placed as a subfamily, the Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Prunoideae"), but was sometimes placed in its own family, the Prunaceae (or Amygdalaceae). More recently, Prunus is thought to have evolved from within a much larger clade now called subfamily Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Spiraeoideae").
The oldest fossils confirmed to belong to Prunus date to the Eocene, and are found across the Northern Hemisphere. Older potential Late Cretaceous records are unconfirmed.
The earliest known fossil Prunus specimens are wood, drupe, seed, and a leaf from the middle Eocene of the Princeton Chert of British Columbia, Canada. Using the known age as calibration data, a partial phylogeny of some of the Rosaceae from a number of nucleotide sequences was reconstructed. Prunus and its sister clade Maloideae (apple subfamily) has been suggested to have diverged 44.3 million years ago which is within the Lutetian, or older middle Eocene. Stockey and Wehr report: "The Eocene was a time of rapid evolution and diversification in Angiosperm families such as the Rosaceae ...." The oldest fossil species is Prunus cathybrownae from the Klondike Mountain Formation.
The Princeton finds are among a large number of angiosperm fossils from the Okanagan Highlands dating to the late early and middle Eocene. Crataegus is found at three locations: the McAbee Fossil Beds, British Columbia; the Klondike Mountain Formation around Republic, Washington, and the Allenby Formation around Princeton, British Columbia, while Prunus is found at those locations plus the Coldwater Beds of Quilchena, British Columbia and Chu Chua Formation around Chu Chua, British Columbia. A review of research on the Eocene Okanagan Highlands reported that the Rosaceae were more diverse at higher altitudes. The Okanagan highlands formations date to as early as 52 mya, but the (approximate) 44.3 mya date[citation needed] might still apply. The authors state that "the McAbee flora records a diverse early middle Eocene angiosperm-dominated forest."
In 1737, Carl Linnaeus used four genera to include the species of modern Prunus—Amygdalus, Cerasus, Prunus, and Padus—but simplified it to Amygdalus and Prunus in 1758. Since then, the various genera of Linnaeus and others have become subgenera and sections, as all the species clearly are more closely related. Liberty Hyde Bailey said: "The numerous forms grade into each other so imperceptibly and inextricably that the genus cannot be readily broken up into species."
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