654 
POLYADELPHIA POLYANDRIA. Class XVIIl. 
10977 buxif61ia P. S. 
10978 nobilis H. K. 
(B minor 
10979 medica Risso 
10980 Decumana W. 
Box-leaved 
Mandarin 
smaller 
Citron 
Shaddock 
*l_Jfr 
lll_Jfr 
*l_]fr 
* l_J fr 
1 LJfr 
3 .my.jl 
15 my.jl 
15 my.jl 
8 my.jl 
15 my.jl 
China 
China 
China 
Asia 
India 
1805. 
1805. 
B r.m 
B r.m Bot. rep. 608 
B r.m Bot. reg. 211 
B r.m Ferr. hesp. t. 39 
B r.m Ru.am.2.t.24.f.2 
109796 
10978/3 ^ 10979 a "^^^ 10974 6> 
History, Use, Propagation, Culture, 
is supposed to have been introduced into Italy in the fourteenth century, above a thousand years after the 
citron. In England, these trees have been cultivated since 1629. Parkinson, writing at that time, says, " the 
orange hath abiden with some extraordinary looking and tending, when neither citron nor lemon trees could 
be preserved any length of time." The orange trees he alludes to were those of Beddington, in Surrey, intro- 
duced from Italy by a knight of the noble family of the Carews {Gibson's edit, of Camb. Brit.), and the first 
that were brought into England ; they were planted in the open ground and placed under a moveable cover 
during the winter months. It has been said that these trees were raised by Sir Francis Carew, from seeds 
brought to England by Sir Walter Raleigh •. but as such trees would not have readily borne fruit. Professor 
Martyn thinks it much more likely that they were plants brought from Italy. Bradley says, they always bore 
fruit in great plenty and perfection ; that they grew on the outside of a wall, not nailed against it, but at full 
liberty to spread ; they were fourteen feet high, the girt of the stem twenty-nine inches, and the spreading of 
the branches one way nine feet, and twelve feet another. These trees, Evelyn informs us, were neglected in 
his time, during the minority of their owner, and finally entirely killed by the great frost in 1739-40 ; they were 
planted before 1595. 
During the latter end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, the orange tree was a 
very fashionable article of growth in conservatories, when there were but few exotics of other sorts kept there. 
The plants were procured from Genoa, with stems generally from four to six feet in height ; they were planted 
in large boxes, and were set out during summer to decorate the walks near the house, in the manner still 
practised at Versailles and the Thuilleries. About the middle of the eighteenth century, when a taste for 
botany and forcing exotic fruits became general, that for superb orange trees began to decline ; many of these 
large "trees have decayed through neglect ; and those which are now to be found in the greater number of 
greenhouses, are generally dwarf plants bearing few fruit, and those of small size. In some places, however, 
are still to be found large and flourishing trees. Those at Smorgony, in Glamorganshire, are the largest in 
Britain ; they are planted in the floor of an immense conservatory, and bear abundantly. It is said that the 
plants were procured from a wreck on the coast in that quarter, in the time of Henry VII. 
At Nuneham, near Oxford, are some fine old trees, planted under a moveable case, sheltered by a north 
wall. In summer the case is removed, and the ground turfed over, so that the whole resembles a native 
orange grove. At Wormleybury, Hertfordshire, and Shipley Hall, in Derbyshire, are very fine large orange 
and lemon trees grown in borders and in boxes. [Hart. Trans, vol. ii. 295, and iv. 306.) 
At the Wilderness, Kent, are three trees in boxes, not surpassed by any trees so grown in Europe. 
At Woodhall, near Hamilton, trees of all the species of Citrus are trained against the back walls of forcing 
houses, in the manner of peaches, and produce large crops of fruit. 
In the south of Devonshire, and particularly at Saltcombe, one of the warmest spots in England, may be 
seen, in a few gardens, orange trees that have withstood the winter in the open air upwards of a hundred 
years. The fruit is as large and fine as any from Portugal. Trees raised from seed, and inoculated on the 
spot, are found to bear the cold better than trees imported. 
The common character of the Citrus family is that of low evergreen trees, with ovate or oval-lanceolate, entire 
or serrated leaves. On the ungrafted trees are often axillary spines. The flowers appear in peduncles, axillary 
or terminating, and one or many-flowered. The fruits are large berries, round or oblong, and generally of a 
yellow color. The species seem best distinguished by the petiole, which in the orange and shaddock is 
winged ; in the citron, lemon, and lime, naked. The form of the fruit, although not quite constant, may also 
serve for a distinction. In the orange and shaddock it is spherical, or rather an oblate spheroid, with a red 
or orange-colored rind ; in the lime, spherical, with a pale rind ; in the lemon, oblong, rough, with a nipple- 
like protuberance at the end ; in the citron, oblong, with a very thick rind. The flowers of the citron and 
lemon have ten stamens, and those of the orange more. It is very difficult to determine what is a variety, 
and what is a species in this genus; many of the sorts in cultivation are by buds. 
Dr. Sickler, who spent several years in Italy, and paid great attention to the kinds and culture of the orange, 
published in 1815, Der Vollkommen Orangerie- Gartner (Tlie complete Orange Gardener), in which he de- 
scribes above seventy sorts of Citrus. 
Gallesio {Traite du Genre Citrus, Sec. Savonna, 1818.) has given a synopsis of the forty principal sorts culti- 
vated in Italy. 
The most splendid work on oranges which has yet appeared is the Histoire Naturelle des Grangers, by Risso, 
of Nice, and Poiteau, of Versailles. (Paris, fol. 1818.) Here 169 sorts are described, and 103 of them figured, 
and their French and Italian culture given at great length. They are arranged as sweet oranges, of which 
they describe 42 sorts ; bitter and sour oranges, 32 sorts ; bergamots, 5 sorts ; limes, 8 sorts ; shaddocks, 6 sorts j 
lumes, 12 sorts ; lemons, 46 sorts ; citrons, 17 sorts. 
All the species of Citrus endure the open air at Nice, Genoa, and Naples ; but at Florence and Milan, and 
often at Rome, they require protection during the winter, and are generally placed in conservatories and sheds. 
The largest conservatory in Italy is that of Prince Antonio Borghese, at Rome, which contains seventy select 
sorts of agrumi. The largest trees are at Sorenta, Terracina, Gaeta, and Naples ; but the most regular and 
garden-like culture of the orange, is in the orange-orchards at Nervi, Monaco, and other places in the neigh- 
bourhood of Genoa. At Nervi are also the orange nurseries which may be said to supply all Europe with 
trees ; they are, in general, wretchedly cultivated, and the stocks inoculated in the most unscientific manner ; 
but the fine climate, strong clavev soil, and abundant manurings, supply in a great degree the nicer practices 
