Jujubes

Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujuba) is native to the middle and lower reaches of China's Yellow River, and real archaeological evidence from Neolithic sites in the Qi River basin documents deliberate cultivation dating back at least 6,200 years — based on measurable changes in seed shape between wild and cultivated specimens. Genomic research places the primary domestication center in China's Shanxi–Shaanxi region, and found that jujube's wild ancestor diverged from it roughly 2.7 million years ago, suggesting a remarkably long period of human interaction with the species before formal domestication.

Jujube was introduced to Korea and Japan around 100 BCE, and later dispersed to Europe and eventually the Americas along the Silk Road. In the US specifically, USDA agricultural explorer Frank Meyer — the same explorer already documented in this database for his 1908 discovery of Meyer lemon — traveled to China in 1908 and collected 67 jujube varieties, including Li and Lang, which went on to become the two dominant commercial jujube cultivars grown in the United States today.

Li and Lang, both traced to Frank Meyer's 1908 expedition and formally catalogued under real USDA Plant Introduction numbers (38249 and 22686), remain the most widely grown jujube varieties in the US, prized respectively for fresh eating and drying.

Sherwood originated as a real, documented seedling in Sibley, Louisiana, credited to grower James S. Akin, and is genuinely propagated true-to-type specifically from root sprouts of the original mother tree rather than standard grafting.

GA-866 was developed at the USDA's jujube research program at the Chico, California Plant Introduction Field Station, selected by researcher Roy Ackerman and colleagues before the station closed in the late 1950s — one of a small number of jujube varieties tracing directly to that early-to-mid-20th-century USDA program.

Modern collector Roger Meyer — explicitly unrelated to the earlier USDA explorer Frank Meyer, despite the shared surname — built a real jujube collection farm and is credited with importing Honey Jar from China and rediscovering at least one older cultivar thought lost.

Jujube is sometimes called the "Chinese date" for its texture and flavor once dried, but it isn't related to true dates (Phoenix dactylifera) at all — jujube belongs to the buckthorn family (Rhamnaceae), while dates are palms.