166 swingle: a new genus of kumquat oranges 



In spite of Rumphius' and Thunberg's excellent description 

 and illustrations, the kumquat was not known in Europe until 

 1846, when Robert Fortune, who was collecting in China for the 

 Royal Horticultural Society of London, brought back to England 

 the first kumquat plants. The kumquat did not become gener- 

 ally known on the continent of Europe until much later. 



Full descriptions of the round and oval kumquats were pub- 

 lished by H. H. Hume,i but not until 1912 was a good account of 

 these plants published in Europe, when Dr. L. Trabut^ described 

 them and distinguished them from the so-called "chinois" or 

 "chinotto" (C Aurantium L., var.), with which they had been 

 confused by Volckamer and many subsequent European writers. 

 In 1914 Dr. Trabut^ published in Algeria a fuller illustrated ac- 

 count of these plants. 



Perhaps because of their relatively late advent into Europe 

 the kumquat oranges have been but little studied by botanists. 

 Apparently no one has questioned the judgment of Thunberg 

 in referring them to the genus Citrus. 



THE KUMQUATS NOT PROPERLY REFERRED TO THE GENUS CITRUS 



The question of the true relationship of the kumquats to 

 other citrous fruits was forced upon the attention of the writer, 

 in the course of a survey of the plants related to Citrus, by a 

 study of a little known plant of Hongkong, called by botanists 

 Atalantia Hindsii (Champ.) Oliv. Good herbarium specimens of 

 this plant, collected by the Wilkes North Pacific Exploring Expe- 

 dition in 1842 and preserved in the National Herbarium at Wash- 

 ington, D. C, showed the unmistakable facies of a kumquat 

 orange. The thick, rigid leaves, pale and abundantly glandular- 

 dotted below, the angular twigs, small flowers, more or less angular 



1 Hume, H. H. The Kumquats. Bull. 65, Fla. Exp. Sta., pp. 550-566, 3 figs. 

 1903; also, Citrus Fruits and their Culture, 3d ed., p. 18, pp. 53-58, pp. 129-131, 

 fiqs. Jt, 5, 10, 28. 1909. 



2 Trabut, L. Chinois et kumquat. Rev. Hort. 84: 564-567, figs. 193-195. 

 1912. 



'Trabut, L. Le kumquat. Bull. Agric. de I'Algerie et de la Tunisia II. 

 20:2-11,4^^8. 1914. 



