**1. Introduction**

324 Chromatography – The Most Versatile Method of Chemical Analysis

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The apple tree belongs to the *Plantae* kingdom, *Magnoliophyta* class, *Rosales* order, *Rosaceae* family, *Pomoidae* sub-family and *Malus* genus. Originating in the mountains of Asia, the apple (*Malus domestica* Borkh) is a temperate fruit with an ancient history [1].

The center of the origin of the *Malus* cultivars is understood to be in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus, located between the Caspian and the Black Seas, the Indian Himalayas, Pakistan and Western China[2], all areas that had access to the Silk Road where marketable products were transported from the east to Europe since antiquity. This is a series of trade routes that crossed Eurasia by land and by stretches of sea or river for over 2,000 years until 1,500 BC, and which enabled the movement of important materials that promoted the exchange of ideas and innovations between different cultural groups. Over the centuries, gunpowder, the compass, the printing press, silk, mathematics and ceramics all migrated along this road, as well as stringed instruments. Resources, information and news were all spread in this fashion among many cultures for such a long period that is often difficult to identify the source of many traditions.

Whatever may have been the mechanism of transport of varieties of apples it is certain that animals, birds, cattle and bats, among others, played an important role [2]. The caravans, with their humans and camels, ate the fruit and left the seeds in fertile areas along the highway since the Neolithic period and many cultivars were perfectly defined in the Middle East around 4000 BC. These regions are characterized by a temperate climate, with low winter temperatures - important for the winter hibernation of apple trees. Commercial apples today are descendants of species from Asia, including the Gala, Golden Delicious and Fuji.

© 2012 Wosiacki et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2012 Wosiacki et al., licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
