330 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



warmer parts of Asia, thoufjh they have been long; 

 introduced into the West Indies, the tropical parts of 

 America, the Atlantic Isles, the warmer countries of 

 Europe, and even Britain, where they bear the open 

 air during the summer, and, in favourable situations, 

 do not need artificial heat, if kept from the frost 

 through the winter. They are all either small trees 

 or shrubs, with brown stems, green twigs and 

 leaves, bearing some resemblance to those of the 

 laurel. We cannot, however, judge of the size of the 

 orange-tree by the specimens we ordinarily see in 

 England. In parts of Spain there are some old 

 orange trees forming large timber*; in the con- 

 vent of St. Sabina, at Rome, there is an orange-tree 

 thirty-one feet high, which is said to be six hundred 

 years old ; and at Nice, in 1 789, there was a tree 

 which generally bore five or six thousand oranges, 

 which was more than fifty feet high, with a trunk 

 which required two men to embrace itf. The size 

 depends much upon the age of the plant. 



There are four distinct species : — The Lemon, or 

 Citron, the Orange, the Mandarin Orange, and the 

 Shaddock ; and of the orange and lemon there are 

 many varieties. They are, even in the East, where 

 they are natives, not a little capricious in their 

 growth ; the fruit, and even the leaves, frequently 

 altering, so that it is not always easy to say which is 

 a distinct species, and which only a variety. They 

 continue flowering during nearly all the summer, and 

 the fruit takes two years to come to maturity ; so that, 

 for a considerable period of each year, a healthy tree 

 has every stage of the production, from the flower- 

 bud to the ripe fruit, in perfection at the same time. 



* Laborde. f Risso. 



