An apple a day keeps the doctor away. He’s the apple of my eye. The larynx in the human throat is often referred to as “Adam’s apple.” There are approximately 6,000 people in the U.S. listed on whitepages.com with the last name Apple. It’s as American as an apple pie. And it’s true: One bad apple can spoil the whole group.

No fruit pops up so frequently in art, literature and everyday speech as the apple.

The apple tree originated in Central Asia where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found today. The apple itself has been part of the human diet for tens of thousands of years. It is often associated with the Garden of Eden as the fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” although no particular fruit we would know was so named. The word malum was used in a 5th c. Latin translation of the Bible. The word means both “apple” and “evil.” The apple has been associated with ‘The Garden’ ever since.

Apples are present in Greek mythology like the story of Atalanta,...