JAMAICA. 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



BOTANICAL DEPARTMENT. 



New Series.] SEPTEMBER, 1900. JJl: 



■' Part IX. 



ORANGE CULTURE AND DISEASES.* 



The orange tree of which we are about to trace the history, belongs 

 to the order Rutacese and to the tribe Aurantiaceae of which it forms 

 the type, and is among the most beautiful gems of the vegetable king- 

 dom. A tree which is so agreable in every way, must have attracted 

 the attention of man from the earliest dawn of civilization. 



It was supposed by the older botanists that the orange tree was a 

 native of Mauritania and that the golden apples which Hercules car- 

 ried away from the gardens of the Hesperides must have been oranges. 

 Coelius declares that the orange tree was introduced from Mauritania 

 into Media, (Northern Persia) and thence into Greece and Italy. But 

 though the orange tree is naturalized in several places of Algeria and 

 Morocco, it is never met with in a ,>eally wild state. Several authors 

 affirm that the orange tree was known to the Romans who called it 

 Citrus, but there are data to prove that the Romans applied this name 

 not to the orange but to the lime or citron, which towards the end of 

 the 2nd century theyi had introduced from Media and Palestine into 

 Italy, 



According to several Arab writers the orange tree was brought by 

 the Arabs from the countries beyond the Granges, and that after the 

 300th year of the Hegira, about the 10th century of the Christian 

 Era, they spread it into Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, and be- 

 came very common in the gardens of Tharsus, whence it was distribu- 

 ted to all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, where they 

 had established their empire. In fact modern travellers attest that the 

 wild orange and lemon trees are very abundant in the forests on the 

 southern slope of the Himalaya beyond the Ganges. 



The sweet orange grows wild in the Southern Provinces of China, 

 in Northern India, Amboyna, the Banda Islands, and in several islands 

 of the Pacific. Several writers, among whom is the celebrated Lou- 

 reiro, affirm that the sweet orange tree was imported into Europe by 

 the Portuguese, about the 14th century. From Portugal the orange 

 tree seems to have passed to the countries bordering on the Mediter- 

 ranean sea. But there are reasons to believe that at least in Asia 

 Minor and Palestine, and also in several islands of the Mediterranean, 

 among which is Malta, the sweet orange, usually called the ordinary 



* A lecture on « Orange Culture and Diseases' delivered by Dr. J, Borg, M.A.j 

 M.T)., at the Malta Archeological and Scientific Society. 



