A small deciduous tree or shrub of the Middle East and the Caucasus, cultivated for its leathery red fruit filled with juicy, jewel-like seed arils.
Where it grows
The pomegranate was domesticated somewhere in the area from northern Iran to northwest India and is now grown across the Middle East, Mediterranean, and increasingly California. It tolerates poor soils, drought, and saline conditions, but flowers and fruits best with hot dry summers.
How to recognise it
A multi-stemmed shrub or small tree with shiny lance-shaped leaves, often spiny twigs, and showy red-orange tubular flowers in early summer. The fruit is a leathery-skinned berry with a persistent crown-like calyx at the tip. Cracking it open reveals up to 600 ruby-coloured arils — translucent juice sacs that each enclose a single seed.
Uses
The fresh arils are eaten as garnish or pressed into the famously deep-red juice. Reduced juice becomes pomegranate molasses — a sweet-sour fixture of Persian and Middle Eastern cooking — and grenadine syrup for cocktails. The bark, rind, and flowers have been used medicinally for centuries, and the rind yields a yellow dye.
In culture
The pomegranate appears in Egyptian tombs, Greek myth (Persephone’s seeds), Jewish religious symbolism, and Mughal miniatures. Its crown-shaped calyx is said to have inspired the design of the royal crown.