The World of Apples

The apples that aren't

Pineapple

Ananas comosus, Bromeliaceae

Morton placed the pineapple’s home in southern Brazil and Paraguay, where its wild relatives grow; it was apparently domesticated there and carried north through South and Central America to Mexico and the West Indies long before Europeans arrived3. Columbus and his shipmates first saw it on Guadeloupe in 14933. It reached Europe in 1650; fruit was being produced in Holland in 1686, but trials in England did not succeed until 17123. In the century before Morton wrote, it became one of the leading commercial fruit crops of the tropics3.

The English name belonged first to something else. Middle English pinappel was the pine cone, from pine and apple4, and the name passed to the tropical fruit for its likeness to one5. Dutch pijnappel still means pine cone and once meant the pineapple too, and Afrikaans pynappel is the pineapple; French keeps the old sense in pomme de pin, pine cone5, and calls the fruit ananas, as Dutch does3.

Where the sources disagree

  • Native range. Morton names southern Brazil and Paraguay3; Kew gives Costa Rica to tropical South America2.

Sources

  1. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy: Ananas comosus, Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Supports: the accepted name and family.
  2. Plants of the World Online: Ananas comosus, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Supports: the accepted name and the native range, "Costa Rica to S. Trop. America".
  3. Pineapple, in Fruits of Warm Climates, Julia F. Morton, Purdue University NewCROP, 1987. Supports: the native range in southern Brazil and Paraguay; domestication and spread to Mexico and the West Indies before Europeans; Columbus on Guadeloupe in 1493; Europe in 1650, Holland in 1686, England in 1712; one of the leading fruit crops of the tropics; ananas in Dutch and French.
  4. pineapple, American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fifth edition, HarperCollins, 2022. Supports: Middle English pinappel, pine cone, from pine and appel, apple.
  5. pineapple, Wiktionary. Supports: pinappel as the pine cone, applied later to the fruit for its likeness to a pine cone; Dutch pijnappel, pine cone and formerly pineapple; Afrikaans pynappel; French pomme de pin.