Almond (Prunus Dulcis) is originally come from Mediterranean and eastward of Indus river, India, Iran, and Pakistan. Almond spread in the world since long time ago by human start from whole Mediterranean, From Mediterranean in to northern Africa, Asia, southeast Europe and the newest come to California USA.

The best place for Almond tree grow is in the Mediterranean climates, with the dry, mild summers and  wet winter or in the area with temperature 30 - 85 Fahrenheit.
After planting Almond begin to bear fruit in the third year and 5 - 7 years for reach full bearing. Almond matures in autumn after 6-8 months flowering.

Even we always put Almond as one of nuts categories. In fact Almond is not nuts, but drupe like peach. The size of almond  drupe between 3.5cm - 6 cm. Like another Prunus family almond is a leathery, thick, green coat ( some of them grey)  with a downy exterior which called the hull. Like the outside of peach pit inside the hull is reticulated, hard and woody shell which called endocarp. The Almond nut is inside the shell. occasionally two occur but generally one seed.

The word Almond is originally come from old french language Almande or Alemande, and also few names from another country like amygdala from greek which in adjective is Amyddaloid  is used for describe the shape between ellipse and  triangle.

Almond have two variant there is bitter Almond and Sweet Almond. The sweet almond is most that we found in the market for our culinary needed. But another one, bitter Almond will give fatal effect if children consume 5 - 10 of them. Because bitter Almond also contain cyanide which must be removed before consumption.
0.5-3.5mg/kg of body weight (approximately 50 bitter Almonds) is the acute oral lethal dose of cyanide for adult humans. 
Bitter Almond also had the contain  about 50% of the fixed oil that occurs in sweet almonds. It also contains the enzyme emulsin which, in the presence of water, acts on soluble glucosides, amygdalin, and prunasin, yielding glucose, cyanide and the essential oil of bitter almonds, which is nearly pure benzaldehyde, the chemical causing the bitter flavor. Bitter almonds may yield from 4–9 mg of hydrogen cyanide per almond and contain 42 times higher amounts of cyanide than the trace levels found in sweet almonds.The origin of cyanide content in bitter almonds is via the enzymatic hydrolysis of amygdalin.
Bitter Almond was produce by some individual tree,  The genetic basis for bitterness involves a single gene, the bitter flavour furthermore being recessive, both aspects making this trait easier to domesticate. The fruits from Prunus dulcis var. amara are always bitter, as are the kernels from other Prunus species, such as apricot, peach, and cherry (to a lesser extent).

Health and benefits of Almonds :

1.  Almond hold about 25gr Vitamin E per 100gr (about 170% RDA). As we know Vitamin E is powerful and soluble antioxidant which is required for maintaining and protecting our cell membrane and skin from harmful effect of  oxygen free radical.

2. Almonds are complete with nutrients especially rich in mono unsaturated fatty acid that will help in lowering LDL (bad cholesterol)  and also increase HDL (good cholesterol) in human body there is also help to prevent coronary artery disease and strokes by favoring healthy blood lipid profile.

3. Almond is contain with many important Vitamin B- complex group such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pantothenic acid. Vitamin B 6 and folates. All together these vitamin work together as co factor for enzymes.

4. Almond contain with some mineral such as manganese, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and selenium. which are important for our healthy.

5. Almond oil which extract from Almond.help protect skin from the dryness if we applied regularly.

Deep more about nutrients of Almond in table below