page_title: Pistachio
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Pistachio / Botany / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: English: Pistachios Torbat-e-Heydariyeh pistachio farms, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran - September 22, 2007 (1386/06/31) Photo by: Safa Daneshvar Thanks to: Faraz Saffron Company, Tehran, Iran فارسی: پسته، مزارع پسته تربت حیدریه، خراسان رضوی، ایران عکس از: صفا دانشور شهریور ماه ۱۳۸۶ با تشکر از شرکت فراز زعفران تربت
context_page_description: The pistachio, a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.
  Pistacia vera often is confused with other species in the genus Pistacia that are also known as pistachio. These other species can be distinguished by their geographic distributions and their seeds which are much smaller and have a soft shell.
  As of 2017, Iran accounted for over half the world's production of pistachios.
context_section_description: The tree grows up to 10 m (33 ft) tall. It has deciduous pinnate leaves 10–20 centimeters (4–8 inches) long. The plants are dioecious, with separate male and female trees. The flowers are apetalous and unisexual and borne in panicles.
  The fruit is a drupe, containing an elongated seed, which is the edible portion. The seed, commonly thought of as a nut, is a culinary nut, not a botanical nut. The fruit has a hard, cream-colored exterior shell. The seed has a mauve-colored skin and light green flesh, with a distinctive flavor. When the fruit ripens, the shell changes from green to an autumnal yellow/red and abruptly splits partly open. This is known as dehiscence, and happens with an audible pop. The splitting open is a trait that has been selected by humans. Commercial cultivars vary in how consistently they split open.
  Each pistachio tree averages around 50 kilograms (110 lb) of seeds, or around 50,000, every two years.
  The shell of the pistachio is naturally a beige color, but it is sometimes dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Originally, dye was applied by importers to hide stains on the shells caused when the seeds were picked by hand. Most pistachios are now picked by machine and the shells remain unstained, making dyeing unnecessary except to meet ingrained consumer expectations.
caption: Pistachio fruit, Torbat-e Heydarieh, Razavi Khorasan, Iran
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