The apple features prominently in the mythology of Europe and the Middle East. For early Germanic peoples, apples represented eternal youth and fertility. Later, they came to symbolize evil and the forbidden. The Latin word for apple, mālum, is similar to the word for evil – mălum. And this is where the generic name Malus comes from. Malus is in the Rosaceae family, making it closely related to another highly symbolic plant – the rose.
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