Garden chrysanthemums were bred in China for many centuries before they reached Japan. There the flower became the emperor's emblem, which is why the Japanese monarchy is called the Chrysanthemum Throne.
📍 Central coast of California, USA
Monterey pine grows wild only along a short stretch of California's central coast and on two Mexican islands. Yet it makes up about 90% of New Zealand's plantation forests.
📍 Mainland Southeast Asia
Chickens descend mainly from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia. The oldest known chicken bones, roughly 3,500 years old, come from Ban Non Wat in northeast Thailand, where wild birds were likely drawn to farmers' rice fields.
📍 Central Mexico highlands
Almost every wild dahlia species grows only in Mexico, the genus's home and centre of diversity. Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles named the flower in 1791 after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.
📍 Tokyo (Edo), Japan
Tycoon is Japanese taikun, 'great lord', a title foreigners used for Japan's shogun in the 1850s. Lincoln's secretary called him 'the Tycoon' in 1861; the business-mogul sense came after WWI.
📍 NE India, Bangladesh & Myanmar
Mangoes originated in the region between northeastern India, Bangladesh and northwestern Myanmar. The English word came via Portuguese from Malayalam “manga”.
📍 Tian Shan, Central Asia
The apple's wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, still grows in Central Asia's Tian Shan mountains, where apples were first domesticated before travelling along the Silk Road to Europe.