Pomegranate Blossom

The pomegranate is a shrub or small tree, 1.5 to 5 m high, with multiple spiny branches. It originated in the region spanning the Caucasus and the Iranian plateau, including modern-day Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, and down to Pakistan. It is also cultivated today across West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, north and Sub-Saharan Africa, the drier parts of Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean basin, the United States and Chile.

The species belongs to the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae. It has more than 500 named cultivars, and the same genotype is often named differently in different regions of the world. The shrub is long-lived, and some specimens in France have survived for 200 years. Its leaves are opposite or subopposite, glossy and narrowly oblong, 1.9 to 5 cm long.

Pomegranate flowers are pollinated by Eastern and Western honey bees, bumblebees, carpenter ants and lemon butterflies. Some fruitless cultivars are grown for the flowers alone. The shrub is reported to flower from April to July. The anthers close around the stigma until the flower matures, and the ovaries are divided inside into compartments, or locules, with many suspended ovules covered by a septum.

In pomegranate grown in Tuscany, sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were the most abundant class in the aroma of the leaves and of all the flower organs. In the flower organs the main constituents were β-caryophyllene, (E,E)-α-farnesene and trans-α-bergamotene. Pelargonidin 3,5-diglucoside and pelargonidin 3-glucoside are among the anthocyanins reported for Punica granatum. In pomegranate extract the main pigments were cyanidin 3,5-diglucoside, delphinidin 3-glucoside and cyanidin 3-glucoside.

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