Apples belong to which plant family?

An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree 'Malus domestica'). Apples belong to Rosaceae plant family.

Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus 'Malus'. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, 'Malus sieversii', is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe and were brought to North America by European colonists.

Apples appear in many religious traditions, often as a mystical or forbidden fruit. One of the problems identifying apples in religion, mythology and folktales is that the word "apple" was used as a generic term for all (foreign) fruit, other than berries, including nuts, as late as the 17th century. For instance, in Greek mythology, the Greek hero Heracles, as a part of his Twelve Labours, was required to travel to the Garden of the Hesperides and pick the golden apples off the Tree of Life growing at its center.