330 ESSENTIALS OF BOTANY 
first sweet oranges grown in what is now United States 
territory were brought to California by the Franciscans 
about 1769. Orange production in this country was for 
a time most extensively carried on in Florida, but severe 
frosts there cut off many orchards, and now the greater 
part of the crop (over 10,000,000 boxes) comes from Cali- 
fornia. The famous Washington navel orange, nearly or 
quite seedless, so largely grown in California, originated 
from chance seedlings. These were found growing wild 
in a swamp along the Amazon, and were brought from 
Bahia, Brazil, to the United States Department of Agri- 
culture in the early seventies. 
The Grape or Vine family contains only one genus, the 
grape, which is of economic importance, but it is one of 
the oldest cultivated plants. The grapes of the European 
type, such as the Malaga, Black Hamburg, Muscat, and 
the Tokay variety so extensively grown in California, are 
solid-meated and are all descendants of a single wild spe- 
cies. American varieties, such as the Concord, Delaware, 
Isabella, Niagara, and many other familiar kinds, with 
soft pulp readily separated from the skin, are descended 
from wild American species (Sect. 889). Grape culture is 
carried on most extensively in California, where the fruit 
is grown for table use, for wine-making, and for preserva- 
tion by drying into raisins. 
The Heath family produces several highly valued spe- 
cies of berries. The most important are cranberries, blue- 
berries, and huckleberries. Cranberries of the ordinary 
large species are borne by a delicate, trailing, woody plant, 
which flourishes particularly in peat-bogs all the way from 
North Carolina to Minnesota and throughout a large part 
of Canada. Cranberry culture is extensively carried on in 
