THE OBANGE AND ITS ALLIES. 173 



particularize a little more minutely some of these va- 

 garies. 



The Malta Blood Orange offers no visible peculiarity 

 until it begins to ripen, when a red stain appears within, 

 spreads over all the pulp, and then comes out upon the 

 rind, though rarely extending all over it. It has but few 

 seeds, and these are nearly always barren. Before modern 

 experiments had demonstrated the fallacies of ancient su- 

 perstition on gardening subjects, a "graft " was as much 

 the matter-of-course solution of any singular vegetable 

 phenomenon as a " spell " was of any extraordinary animal 

 affection ; and accordingly it was a general belief that this 

 sanguineous-tinted fruit was the product of an orange 

 grafted on a pomegranate, a notion now ascertained to be 

 quite incorrect, though it is still supposed to be a cross, 

 but only between an Indian and a European species of 

 aurantium. The Turkish Orange* has a number of nar- 

 row radiating stripes extending from the top of the fruit 

 towards and sometimes quite to the stalk, the predomi- 

 nant colour of the fruit being pale yellow, and the stripes 

 at first green, afterwards red. The Horned Orange t 

 grows out into protuberances of different sizes, sometimes 

 conical, sometimes shaped like the claw of a tiger, giving 

 the normal sphere a deformed and monstrous appearance. 

 The cause of this singular eccentricity is traced by Lindley 

 to a monstrous separation of the carpels, or parts of the 

 ovary; while another yet more extraordinary variation of 

 form in which but half of the fruit is globular, a num- 

 ber of misshapen prominences completing its figure, and 

 presenting an appearance very like a bird's nest with a 

 number of unsightly young ones putting forth their little 

 heads from it is considered to arise from the growth of 

 a supernumerary row of carpels beyond the legitimate 

 number which form the ordinary ovary, and which deve- 

 lop into little oranges, deformed, perhaps, owing to not 

 having room to expand within the larger one. Yet an- 

 other notable variety of the sweet orange is that which 

 is known at Paris by the name of " Adam's Apple," having 



* See Plate V., fig. 7. t Ib.> fig. 15. 



