CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE POMELOS. 



The name pomelo (pi. pomelos), as applied to the 

 fruit under consideration, is the one now recognized by 

 all horticultural writers and has been adopted by the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, the American 

 Pomological Society, the Florida State Horticultural So- 

 ciety and the California State Board of Horticulture. The 

 word has been variously spelled pummelo, pumalo, pumelo, 

 pumelow, etc., but the name and spelling as adopted in 

 this volume are in accordance with the present usage of 

 American horticulturists. 



In 1713, in his Hesperidium Norimbergensium, pages 

 181 and 189, Volckamer uses the names pompelmoes and 

 pompelmus and on page 189 a, gives a very good illustra- 

 tion of the pomelo as we know it. This is one of the ear- 

 liest references to the fruit under this name, although Fer- 

 rari apparently referred to the same fruit, or a closely 

 related one, as Aurantium Maximum (Hesperides, 437; 

 pis. 439 and 441, 1646). From the Dutch pompelmoes has 

 come our modern name pomelo. The explanation offered 

 by Bonavia ( 1 ) of the derivation of the Dutch name is that 

 they probably first found the fruit at the village of Pom- 

 pelmousses in the Mauritius and gave the name of the 

 village to it. Harris (2) offers the explanation that pom- 

 elo is derived from pomum mclo, the melon-apple. Which 

 of these is correct would be difficult to say. 



1. Gardner's Chronicle, 27:450-451. 1900. 



2. Bailey's Cyclopedia Am. Hort., 3:1397. 1901. 



