176 OUE COMMON FRUITS. 



different proportions, one, perhaps, being half orange and 

 half Bigarade or Citron, another the same mixture in alter- 

 nate quarters or eighths, and so on in almost endless va- 

 riety. It seems, in short, as though the elements of several 

 different species were circulating under the same bark, yet 

 remaining, like oil and water, without the power to mix, 

 or at least to blend and unite : each finds distinct and in- 

 dependent development as it can not at stated times and 

 distances, but apparently quite capriciously. Sometimes 

 branches covered with the leaves, flowers, and fruit of the 

 Citron will all at once change their nature, and produce 

 only sweet oranges or bitter ones, or run through the 

 whole series alternately. Finally, these freaks will often 

 suddenly cease, and a plant which has been sporting away 

 its youth in such coquettish vagaries will sober down into 

 a staid matronly tree, bearing henceforth but a single kind 

 of ordinary fruit. 



The Bigaradier attains sometimes to a very great age. 

 There is one in the gardens of the convent of Saint Sa- 

 bine at Borne which is asserted by tradition to have been 

 planted by St. Dominic about the year 1200, and which 

 was certainly spoken of by Augustin Grallo, as far back as 

 in 1559, as a tree which had been in existence from time 

 immemorial. Eeing looked on as a miraculous prodigy, 

 its fruit is reserved to be given, with great ceremony, to 

 the sick, and some of it was also invariably presented to 

 the Pope and cardinals on their Ash Wednesday visita- 

 tion of this church. Age did not impair its fertility, for 

 in 1806, according to the assurance of the monks, it bore 

 no less than 2,000 oranges. It was still living a few years 

 ago, and may probably be so now. 



Among the minor uses of the orange- tree, it may be 

 mentioned that its wood was formerly much employed in 

 marqueterie work, but since so many new varieties of tim- 

 ber have been brought from America, orange-wood has 

 fallen into disuse. The leaves find a place in the Phar- 

 macopoeia, being sometimes prescribed for hysterical fe- 

 males instead of tea; and from common oranges, cut 

 through the middle while green, dried in the air, and 

 steeped for 40 days in oil, the Arabs, according to Crich- 



