ISHS Acta Horticulturae 470: II International Symposium on Pistachios and Almonds
THE HISTORY AND USE OF WILD ALMONDS IN ARMENIA |
| Authors: | P.A. Ghandelian, M.A. Barseghian |
| Abstract:
The almond tree is a native of the warmer parts of western Asia and North Africa, has been extensively distributed over the warm temperate regions of the Old World, and is cultivated in all the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Almond, as well as the oil pressed from it, was well known in Greece and Italy long before the Christian era. A beautiful fable in Greek mythology is associated with the tree. Servius relates that Phyllis was changed by the gods into an almond tree as an eternal compensation for her desertion by her lover Demophoon, which caused her death by grief. When Demophoon returned, too late, and when the leafless, flowerless and forlorn tree was shown to him as the memorial of Phyllis, he clasped it in his arms, whereupon it burst forth into bloom - an emblem of true love inextinguishable by death. During the Middle Ages, almonds became an important article of commerce in Central Europe. Their consumption in medieval cookery was enormous. The ancients attributed many wonderful virtues to the almond, but it was chiefly valued for its supposed virtue in preventing intoxication. Plutarch mentions a great drinker of wine, who by the use of bitter almonds escaped being intoxicated, and Gerard says: 'Five or six, being taken fasting, do keepe a man from being drunke.' This theory was probably the origin of the custom of eating salted almonds during a dinner. In the Republic of Armenia, biological research regarding almond species was started around 1920 by the famous Russian botanist N.I. Vavilov. During his study in the Shorbulagh village, many new species of wild almond trees were discovered and described. The wild almond tree grows freely in Ararat hollow: it is mentioned in Monu scripture as one of the best fruit trees of the land of Hayastan (“Armenia” in Armenian). In Armenia, many well-known botanists such as Tamarjian (1935), Fiodorov (1936, 1942), Takhtajian (1937), Linchewsky and Fiodorov (1941) studied the taxonomy of wild almond trees. They described new wild almond species such as: Amygdalus urartu Tam., A. grossheimii Tam., A. gjarniensis Tam., A. bordzilowskyi Fed. et Takht., A. preudocommunis Fed. et Takht., A. popovii Fed. et Takht., A. nairica Fed. et Takht., A. pseudopersica Tam., and A. zangezura Fed. et Takht. | |
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