D.E.F., 

 ii., 335-48. 

 Orange. 



CITRUS 



AURANTIUM THE BITTER AND SWEET ORANGES 



Orange 



oranges, lemons and pomelos. One or two of these he speaks of as wild. The 

 China. sweet orange, however, he regarded as a native of China, but adds, " some con- 



sider it a native of Amboina." Numerous writers refer to the efforts made in 

 India to improve and increase the orange and lemon supplies of that country. 

 There need, therefore, be little cause for surprise that the oranges of Cintra 

 Ointra. should have reached India even before Baber's time. Dr. Hunter long years ago 



suggested that the name for one of our best-known forms of orange, viz. sengtereh 

 (of Baber) or santara (as it is nowadays called), was but a Hindustani corruption 

 of Cintra, thus indicating its having been brought from Portugal. The name 

 i,,i<n,,i given by botanists to the orange does not come from auram gold, but 

 is derived from the Arabic narandj. This became ndrendj (narang) in the Persian, 

 and its equivalent in Sanskrit is ndgaranga and in the Hindustani ndrangi. Names 

 that begin with nar generally denote fragrance. The name orange came to English 

 through the Moors, and became ndranjo in Spanish, laranga in Portuguese, arancio 

 in Italian, oranger in French, orangenbaum in German, and the like. [Cf. Ligon, 

 Hist. Barbados, 1657, 69 ; Terry, Travels E. Ind., 1665 (ed. Havers), 343 ; Ovington, 

 Voy. Suratt, 1689, 423 ; Le Comte, Mem. de la Chine, 1696, i., 173 ; also Bret- 

 schneider review, Hist. Europ. Bot. Disc, in China, 15 ; Forster, PL Esc., 1786, 35 ; 

 E.I.C. First Letter Book, 81 ; Wise, Hindoo Medicine, 191 ; Wiesner, Die Rohst. 

 dea Pflanzenr., i. ; 653, ii. ; 584, 631 ; Joret, Lea PI. dans VAntiq., 1904, 282-3.] 



C. aurantium, Linn.; Fl. Br. Ind., i., 515; Roxburgh, Fl. Ind., 

 iii., 392 ; Woodrow, Note on the Oranges and Lemons of India, 1890 ; 

 Deman, Relative Merit of Stocks on which to Bud Oranges, U.S. Dept. Agri. 

 Bull, 1891, No. 4 ; also Division of Pomology, Bull. No. 1, 57-87 ; Rept. Settl. 

 Amherst, 1891-2, 47-50, 160-1; 1896,24-5; Kew Bull, 1894, 117-9 ; 1895, 

 266-71 ; Webber, Pert, of Soil as affecting the Orange in Health and Disease, 

 in U.S. Yearbook Agri. Dept., 1894, 193-202 ; Stephen, Supt. Gov. Gardens, 

 Nagpur, 1899 ; Mukerji, Handbook Ind. Agri., 1901, 490-2 ; Aaronsohn 

 und Soskin, Die Orang. von Jaffa, in Der Tropenpflanzer., 1902, vi., 341-62 ; 

 Cooke, Fl. Pres. Bomb., 1903, i., 190-1 ; Duthie, Fl Upper Gang. Plain, 

 1903, 141-2 ; The Bitter (or Seville) and also the Sweet Orange. 



Bitter. The bitter (or Seville) orange, though sometimes spoken of as indi- 



genous to India, is there very little cultivated. The so-called wild, or 

 perhaps only fully acclimatised plants that have been recorded as met with, 

 are botanically nearer the sweet than the bitter (or marmalade) orange. It 

 seems highly probable, on the other hand, that at least some of the forms 



Sweet. of the Sweet Orange came to India via Assam, the route along which many 



other Chinese plants have passed westward into Hindustan. There may 

 be said to be four or five chief centres of Indian orange production : 

 Sylhet in Assam ; Nagpur in the Central Provinces ; the lower ranges of the 

 Eastern and Central Himalaya (Sikkim, Nepal, Garhwal and Kumaon) ; 

 Delhi in the Panjab ; and the Deccan and South India (Poona, Coorg, etc.). 



Chief Kinds. Bonavia speaks of four chief races of this fruit, viz. (1 ) the Santara 



word which he writes " Siintara " and regards as of Sanskrit origin and 

 not (as stated above) a corruption from Cintra) ; (2) Keonla, or the 

 common naringi, produced here and there all over the country in gardens, 

 not special plantations ; (3) the Malta or Portugal the blood-orange, 

 introduced in 1852 and now fairly successfully produced at Gujranwala 

 and also in gardens at Lucknow ; and (4) the Mandarin of some writers 

 (C. nobilis, var. major), a native of China and Cochin-China and the 

 Tanjerine (C. nobilis, var. minor}. Both these are occasionally met 

 with in gardens but can hardly be regarded as important Indian fruits, 

 although one of them appears to have been crossed with the santara in 

 producing an orange commonly met with in some parts of the Deccan 

 and South India, which is sometimes called " Indian Mandarin." 



santara. The santara or sungtura (ndgaranga of Sanskrit) is by far the best 



320 



