Citrus Fruits 



577 



gin, each on a short stalk, thick and 

 leathery, bright green, smooth and 

 shining above, dull green and con- 

 spicuously veined and black glan- 

 dular dotted beneath. The flowers 

 appear throughout the year in pani- 

 cles 3 to 8 cm, long, on short 

 slightly hairy pedicels; the obovate 

 or oval petals are 3 to 3.5 mm. 

 long; the ovoid or eUipsoid ovary 

 is hairy. The fruit is obovoid to 

 eUiptic-oval, 6 to 13 mm. long, 

 tapering below into a short neck, 

 black with a bluish bloom when 

 fully ripe, and aromatic. 



The wood is similar to that of 

 the preceding species, and its 

 branches are also used for torches. 



Fig. 532. Balsam Torchwood. 



V. CITRUS FRUITS 



GENUS CITRUS LINN.EUS 



ITRUS consists of about 30 species of usually thorny evergreen trees 

 or shrubs of Asiatic origin, many of which are cultivated throughout 

 the tropics for their dehcious acidulous fruits and have become 

 abundantly naturahzed in many warm countries. Their economic im- 

 portance Ues in their valuable fruits. The volatile oil contained in the abundant 

 small oil-glands, especially in the rind of the fruit, is largely used for flavoring, 

 and the more acid fruits are a source of that most important of vegetable acids, 

 citric acid. The wood of the orange tree is used to some extent in fancy cabinet 

 work and for canes. 



Several of the lesser known fruits of this genus have become popular with us. 

 Foremost among these is the Grape fruit, a form of Citrus decumana Linnaeus, also 

 commonly known as Pomelo; this species is a native of the Malay region and is a 

 large tree noteworthy for its immense grape-hke clusters of large, nearly globular, 

 hght yellow fruits often i dm. or more in diameter, the flesh of which has a pe- 

 cuHarly blended taste of bitter, sweet and acid, making it a most heaUhful break- 

 fast food. The Mandarine, a depressed-globose fruit of the size of a small orange 

 with a deep orange-colored or almost red, very smooth, thin rind and a sweet 

 pleasantly acid pulp, is the product of a small tree native of Cochin China, Citrus 

 nohilis Louricro. The small, berry-like, Hght yellow fruits, 12 to 18 mm. long, 

 known as Kumquats and noted for their spicy sweet acid taste, are quite rare in 



