GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE CITRUS FAMILY. 



ing, in the same manner as Europeans employ 

 aqua fortis. 



THE OKANGE. 



The sweet orange is one of the most delieious 

 and refreshing of fruits. It is antiscorbutic and 

 very useful in bilious maladies. Its peel has an 

 essential oil full of aroma, which at maturity 

 loses its biting and bitter quality ; the peel may 

 then be eaten. In the finest varieties the peel is 

 very thin. It is thicker in others, but the white 

 part, instead of beiug fleshy as in the citron, is 

 always cottony, light, and tasteless. Orange 

 juice is extremely sweet and agreeable. The 

 sweet orange is eaten in its natural state, and 

 this is almostf its only use. 



THE BIQARADE. 



The bitter orange is not eaten. Preserves are 

 made from them, which are very agreeable. The 

 peel is more aromatic than that of other species, 

 and the essential oil it contains has always a bit- 

 terness and caustic taste which distinguishes it 

 from the sweet orange. The juice of the bigar- 

 ade is sharp and bitter. It is used in the same 

 manner as that of the lemon, as an agreeable sea- 

 soning for animal and vegetable substances, and 

 especially for fish, whose tendency to putrefaction 

 is thus greatly diminished. But the principal of 

 the bigarade tree is that of its flower. This is 

 exceedingly sweet-scented, and from it are made 

 perfumed waters and essences, which surpass in 

 gratefulness those of the lemon, sweet orange, or 

 citron. 



This finishes the description of the four primi- 

 tive species into which the numerous family of 

 the Citrus is divided. 



Before undertaking the description and identifi- 

 cation of their derivatives, it is necessary to estab- 

 lish the acceptation of several terms which have 

 been adopted by botanists, agriculturists, and gar- 

 deners to designate some different races whose 

 characteristics have not been well determined. 

 We will examine the meaning of the words lime, 

 lamie,aud poncire. 



It is difficult to determine with exactness the 

 idea attached to each of these terms, and still 

 more difficult to follow out all their application 

 to various races by different writers ; but we 

 shall not have much trouble in recognizing that 

 all these names have only been invented in order 

 to designate the hybrids which we meet with 

 every day in our gardens, and which could not 

 be called by the names already in use, be- 

 cause these names belonged to the species and 

 their varieties. As, however, the origin and na- 

 ture of these fruits was little known, they were 

 unable to employ systematically the names which 

 they have assigned indefinitely to individuals of 

 very different nature. 



Ferraris seems to designate, under the name of 

 lime, nippled fruits derived from the orange 

 and the lemon, and under the name of lumie, hy- 

 brids of large, round fruit with a yellow, thick 

 skin, and a very sour thin pulp. But in practice 

 he does not always make this distinction, and, for 

 example, places among limes the lemons called 

 sweet as well as those of an orange pulp ; and 

 after having classed among the lumies the Ad- 

 am's apple, under the name of lumia mlentina, 

 and other hybrids of several forms, and having 

 a citron peel, he describes, under the name of 

 limes, orange-lemons, of which several resemble 



and are confounded with his lamics, such as the 

 lima dulcis, which he puts in the same class as 

 the Citrus aurantiqtum, or cedrat of China, which 

 he calls lima citrata scabiosa et monstruosa. 



He subsequently confounds these same races of 

 fruits with lemon-cedrats and poncires, which he 

 regards as different species, although these terms 

 are also considered as only synonyms represent- 

 ing equally the same hybrid. 



In the midst of this confusion, however, we 

 find that all writers have recognized iJnder these 

 same names of lime, lumie and poncire, the hy- 

 brids of the Citrus family, although each one has 

 had a separate definition for them. These are 

 the terms appjied to hybrids in Italy, France, 

 Spain, and Portugal. 



We shall, therefore, follow this nomenclature, 

 and in order to give to it more precision, we will 

 designate the poncire as the hybrid of the lemon 

 and the citron or cedrat ; the lime as the hybrid 

 of the orange and the lemon ; and the lumie as 

 the hybrid of the citron and the orange. 



We shall subdivide these three races of hybrids 

 into two classes. 



The first comprises hybrids which have pre- 

 served all the physiognomy of the principal spe- 

 cies, from which they are distinguished only by 

 very slight modifications hardly affecting any 

 part of the plant. 



The second class comprises those hybrids in 

 which the mixture is so pronounced that they 

 cannot be confounded with any of the varieties 

 of the primitive species. 



We shall retain for the first class the name of 

 the species to which they belong, accompanied 

 by an epithet indicating the modification which 

 distinguishes them ; such are the Chinese citron, 

 which we will call the monstrous citron, and the 

 cedrat of Florence, which we shall still call the 

 citron of Florence. 



The second class will preserve the names of 

 lime, lumie, and poncire. We shall, however, 

 be careful to arrange the different varieties under 

 the species which predominate in the mixture, 

 and to which they seem most to belong. This is 

 the method I shall follow in the following de- 

 tailed descriptions of species, varieties, and hy- 

 brids. 



CHAPTER III. 



IDENTIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION. 



ART. I. The Citron Tree. 



The citron tree was for several centuries a con- 

 stant species, preserved in Europe without hy- 

 brids or varieties. Thus Theophrastus, Virgil, 

 Pliny, Palladius, Crescentius, &c., represent it. 

 As soon, however, as its cultivation was extended 

 and it was multiplied by seed, it gave varieties ; 

 and it produced hybrids also so soon as it was 

 placed in the same" soil with lemon and orange 

 trees. Hence the three varieties of Mathiole 

 and Gallo, and the more numerous ones of the 

 Arabic agriculturists; hence also the infinite 

 races of later writers, who have classed among 

 the species of the citron tree the multitude of 

 monsters which reappear every day without ever 

 resembling each other, and which are hardly 

 ever perpetuated. 



Ferraris reports eight species of this tree, and 



