THE LEMON. 



DR. AI^BKRT SCHNKIDER. 



THE lemon is the fruit of a small 

 tree from ten to fifteen feet high. 

 It is not particularly beautiful, 

 being rather shrubby in its ap- 

 pearance. It is an evergreen, bearing 

 leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year 

 round. The flowers occur singly in 

 the axils of the leaves. The calyx is 

 persistent, that is, it does not drop off 

 like the corolla, and may be found at- 

 tached to the base of the fruit. The 

 corolla consists of five spreading petals 

 of a purplish-pink color. 



The lemons of the market are from 

 cultivated plants of which there is a 

 large number of varieties. These culti- 

 vated varieties or forms took their 

 origin from the wild lemon trees 

 native in northern India, in the moun- 

 ain forests of the southern Himalayas, 

 in Kumoan and Sikkim. 



Lemons have been known for a long 

 time. They were brought to the notice 

 of the Greeks during the invasion of 

 Alexander the Great into Media where 

 the golden-yellow fruit attracted the 

 attention of the warriors who gave 

 them the name of Median apples 

 (Mala medico). Later, Greek warriors 

 also found this fruit in Persia, and 

 hence named it Persian apples {Mala 

 persica). The eminent Greek philoso- 

 pher and naturalist Theophrastus, 390 

 B. C., described the fruit as inedible, 

 though endowed with a fragrant odor, 

 and having the power to keep away in- 

 sects. On account of this latter prop- 

 erty the so-called Median apple was, by 

 some, supposed to be identical with the 

 fruit of the cedar (Kedros) and there- 

 fore received the name ^'Citrus' from 

 which is derived ''citrone," the Ger- 

 man name, and ''citronnier," the 

 French name for the fruit. Our word 

 lemon is said to have been derived 

 from the Indian word limu and the 

 Arabian word limun. It seems that at 



the time of the great Roman historian 

 and naturahst, Pliny (23-79 A. D.), the 

 lemon was not yet extensively culti- 

 vated. Dioscarides (50 A. D.) speaks 

 highly of the medicinal virtues of the 

 bitter and acrid wild-growing lemon. 

 Ccclius Aurelianus recommends lemon 

 juice in gout and fevers. In 150 A. D., 

 the lemon tree, evidently introduced, 

 was found growing about Naples and 

 in Sardinia, but the fruit was still inedi- 

 ble. About the third century cultiva- 

 tion had so far improved the fruit that 

 it could be eaten. 



The Arabians are credited with first 

 having introduced the lemon tree into 

 southern Europe. The noted Arabian 

 geographer, Edrisi, twelfth century, 

 describes the lemon as very sour and 

 about the size of an apple and the 

 plant as growing only in India. This 

 latter statement is, however, erroneous 

 as the lemon had already been exten- 

 sively cultivated in southern and east- 

 ern Spain, where it was introduced by 

 the agriculturally-inclined . Moors. It 

 has been cultivated for many centuries 

 in nearly all of the countries bordering 

 on the Mediterranean Sea and is now also 

 evtensively cultivated in the tropical 

 and sub-tropical countries and islands 

 of the Western Hemisphere. One var- 

 iety of species, (Citrus lemetta), is a 

 native of the East Indies and is exten- 

 sively cultivated in the West Indies. 

 Lemon trees are found everywhere in 

 the larger green houses and conserva- 

 tories along with the closely related 

 orange. (Citrus vulgaris). 



As the result of cultivation there are 

 now about fifty varieties of lemons in 

 existence. Some of these are compar- 

 atively sweet or rather insipid and are 

 therefore known as sweet lemons. 

 The sour varieties are, however, more 

 generally cultivated. 



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