60 
CITRUS AURANTIUM. 
neously in East Florida, and on the Island of Cuba. 6th. Myrtle-leaved 
Bigarade, with small, very compact, ovate, sharp-pointed leaves, and small, 
round fruit. If well cultivated, it is generally both in flower and fruit at the 
same time. On this account, and its dwarfy habit, it is a very common object 
in houses and gardens. It is said to be employed by the Chinese gardeners as 
an edging of flower-beds, in the same manner as the dwarf box in Europe and 
America. * 
Geography and History. The orange is believed to have been originally a 
native of the warmer parts of Asia, and has long since been acclimated to the 
shores of the Red and Mediterranean Seas, to the temperate and tropical isles of 
the oceans and seas, and to the warmer portions of Africa and America. It is 
especially cultivated with a view to profit, and abounds in Portugal, Spain, 
France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, northern Africa, and many of the islands 
adjacent to those countries ; also in the Azores, Brazil, the island of Cuba, and 
East Florida. 
At the time of the crusades for the recovery of Syria from the dominion of the 
Saracens, oranges were found abundant in that country. Though they were, in 
reality, cultivated trees, the beauty and excellence of their fruit, by the aid of 
romance and credulity, naturally led the infatuated adventurers to believe and 
state that they )were indigenous, and formed a part of the glories of the " Holy 
Land." The fables of the profane writers, and the ambiguity of the descriptions 
of vegetables in Holy Writ, helped further to confirm this opinion. As the 
oranges were in the form of apples, and the colour of gold, it was easy to make 
them the "golden apples of the garden of the Hesperides;" and the only point 
that remained to be settled, was to fix the locality of that enchanting and imag- 
inary abode. The authority of Moses was brought into requisition to confirm the 
existence of the Syrian fruit, even at the time when the children of Israel were 
wandering in the wilderness ; and the boughs of the " goodly trees" borne in the 
procession commanded in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus, were considered 
no less than those of the orange. The mala medica of the Romans, which 
is mentioned by Virgil, and afterwards by Palladio and others; the kitron 
of the Greeks; and the citrus of Josephus, were all understood to mean the 
same fruit. Although there was much written upon the subject, there was no 
attempt to examine the authorities with that minuteness which the search of 
truth demanded. This opinion prevailed until the XlXth century, when the 
history of this fruit was carefully investigated by Galesio. He maintains that 
the orange, instead of being found in the north of Africa, in Syria, or even in 
Media, whence the Romans must have obtained their " mala medica," was not in 
that part of India, watered by the Indus, at the time of Alexander the Great's 
expedition, as it is not mentioned by Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, 
among the fruits and productions of that country. It is not noticed either by 
Arrian, Diodorus, or by Pliny ; and even so late as the year 1300, Pietro di 
Cuescenga, a senator of Bologna, who wrote on agriculture and vegetable pro- 
ductions, does not make the least mention of the orange. 
The first distinct notice of this fruit on record, is by Avicenna, an Arabian phy- 
sician, who flourished in the Xth century. He not only describes oleum de cit- 
rangula, (oil of oranges,) and oleum de citrangidorum seminibus, (oil of orange- 
seeds,) but speaks of citric acid (acid of citrons.) According to Galesio, the 
Arabs, when they entered India, found the orange tribes there, further inland 
than Alexander had penetrated; and they brought them to Europe by two 
routes, the sweet ones through Persia to Syria, and thence to the shores of 
Italy and the south of France, and the bitter ones, by Arabia, Egypt, and the 
north of Africa, to Spain and Portugal. 
* Penny Cyclopaedia, vol. vii., p. 214. 
