NOTE ON AN ORANGE. 
388 
NOTE ON AN ORANGE HAVING A DISTINCT STREAK OF 
LEMON COLOUR ON THE RIND. 
By Dr. Bonavia. 
I HAVE received the Orange with a pale streak on the peel, and you 
ask me to explain this phenomenon. It is not an easy task you have 
set me. 
But let us look over the facts we have regarding the Citrus. 
I do not think that because we now find the Orange of the shops with 
a smooth and uniform surface all round that it was so in the genesis of 
the Orange. 
Such phenomena as the one under discussion are not very uncommon, 
and if you refer to the monograph of Risso and Poiteau you will find 
that the " Bigaradier bicolor " is yellow with green stripes when unripe, 
and yellow with orange stripes when ripe. 
Then they also show the "Bigaradier bizarrerie," which has the 
smooth parts orange colour, and the warty parts yellow. Rivers, at one 
of the R.H.S. meetings, has shown some beautiful specimens of the 
parti-coloured Orange, which are normally so. 
I have reproduced in outline Risso's parti-coloured Citrus in my 
" Oranges and Lemons of India," plate 259. 
Now, is any explanation possible of these interesting phenomena ? 
My belief is that in the genesis of the Citrus fruit (far prior to the 
one we see perfected to-day) things may have been very different. 
In my same book (plates 139 and 110) I gave two interesting forms 
of the "fingered Citrus." These may, I think, be taken as reversions to 
some primitive attempt of the genus to make the beginning of our per- 
fected Citron. 
Then Penzig, in his " Studj degli Agrumi," fig. G, pi. 9, gives a very 
extraordinary form of a fingered Lemon. This teratological specimen 
appears to have become split up into independent carpels. 
I have reproduced this figure in outline on page 356 of " Philoso- 
phical Notes on Botanical Subjects." 
If now you refer to plates 145, 147, and 149 of "Oranges and 
Lemons of India," which give various forms of Citron, you will see that 
the segments of the peel, seen as separated in the fingered Citron, are 
still very distinct, although they have quite coalesced, and have formed 
a complete covering to the inner portion of the fruit. 
Now my contention is that these segments are of the nature of leaves 
set in a whorl, as we see them in many plants. 
What I am coming to is this. The smooth-surfaced Orange of to-day 
is in its origin, in my opinion, nothing more than a coalesced whorl of 
segments, smoothed up to date by human selection. 
Who can tell for how many centuries the Chinese and other peoples 
before them had been selecting the different kinds of Citrus from their 
beginnings as rude segmented surfaces ? It is only by an occasional 
