The Shaddock. 193 



THE SHADDOCK (Citrus decumana). 



DECUMANA signifies plump, massive, buxom, portly ; 

 hence is well applied to the huge fruit in the vernacular 

 called the Shaddock, the largest of the globular ones 

 produced by any species of Citrus, as the citron is the 

 largest of the elongated. The name is understood to 

 commemorate a certain sea-captain who conveyed it from 

 China to the West Indies, a doubt resting at the same 

 time over the orthography, since at Bishops Lydiard, 

 Somerset, with which village the family seems to have 

 been connected, the spelling over the doors is Shattock. 

 The tree producing it is thought to be a native of Java 

 and Polynesia, carried thence to India, and from India 

 dispersed to other countries near the tropics. The 

 stature is about eighteen feet ; the very large leaves are 

 rounded, and have winged petioles, like those of the 

 orange; the flowers are white; the rind is pale yellow 

 and very bitter ; the pulp is either white or red, and the 

 juice sub-acid and sweet. A good mark of the growing 

 tree is found in the pubescence of the young branchlets, 

 and upon the undersides of the young leaves, all other 

 species of Citrus being perfectly glabrous. Of the fruit, 

 which is ordinarily about four times as large as an 

 orange, sometimes almost the size of a man's head, there 

 are many varieties, differing in flavour, and yet more 

 markedly in substance, some being hard, others abound- 

 ing in juice. The best kind seems to be that one called 



2C 



