234 Oranges and Lemons of India. 



Arabs call altrung and ottrog, although properly 

 speaking Torong is Persian. From this, the Spanish . 

 Toronja* has come." All research regarding this 

 citron, goes to show that in Media and Persia it was 

 known from a very ancient date. Alph. de Candolle 

 says : "The Greeks had seen the citron in Media and 

 Persia in the time of Theophrastus, three centuries 

 before Christ. In fact Citrus medica, and Malum 

 Persicum, both meaning the citron, were given to it 

 from the names of those countries. With these names 

 this tree was first imported into Europe, being the 

 first citrus that found its way there. De Candolle 

 says that, according to Targioni, the citron was, after 

 many attempts, cultivated in Italy in the third or 

 fourth century. 



The questions that now remain are How and 

 whence did it come to Media and Persia ? No 

 author says that it is indigenous there. Did it 

 come there from India or elsewhere ? 



Prof. Co well says that " taranj, an orange, t occurs 

 in the Sikander nameh of the Persian poet, Nizami, 

 who died about A.D. 1200." Baber, 300 years ago, 

 said the sweet citron was common in Lemghanat, 

 and the sour one in Bajour. Sir J. Hooker, in his 

 " Flora I ndica," says it is found wild in the valleys 

 along the foot of the Himalaya from Gurhwal to Sik- 

 kim ; in the Khasia mountains, Garrow mountains, 

 Chittagong, the Western Ghats, and in the Satpura 

 range, in Central India. 



Rumphius says that the citron is not frequent in 

 the islands of the Malay archipelago. They are 



* In Spanish I am told it is written toronja, but pronounced 

 toronkha. 



t Prof. Vambery also says that now-a-days turunj means also an 

 orange of a particular kind. 



