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WILD ORANGE TREE. 
the coast of the Mediterranean. About Nice all the known 
species and varieties of this grateful fruit are cultivated in 
perfection. The Orange has also been supposed to be a 
native of the Hesperides, or Canary Islands, and its fruit 
to be the golden apples, which the daughters of Hesperus 
caused to be so strictly guarded by a watchful dragon. Under 
this idea, Ventenat changed the name of the natural order 
to which it belongs from Aurantise to Hesperidse, an inno- 
vation more poetic than philosophical, and which has not 
been adopted. 
The Lemon appears to have been the first of the genus 
which was introduced into Europe. Theophrastus, and 
after him Pliny, speak of a fruit known under the name of 
the Apple of Persia, or of Media. Virgil in his Georgies, 
extols the happy effects supposed to be produced by the 
use of the Apple of Media. 
. . . Animos et olentia Medi 
Ora fovent illo, et senibus medicantur anhelis. 
Georg. Lib. 2. 
The Phocians are supposed to have been the first who 
planted this tree on the coast of the Mediterranean, when 
they founded the city of Marseilles. In the 11th century 
the Seville Orange was already spread through all the 
islands of the Mediterranean, and in the 13th century it 
was established about Nice. The species of Orange of 
which we are now treating, (the Bigaradier of the French,) 
appears to have been introduced from India into Europe by 
the Arabs, who cultivate it in all the countries subjected to 
their dominion. The Citron passed from Egypt into Europe 
in the time of the Crusades. According to the testimony 
of one of the Arabian writers, it was from Phenicia that the 
golden Orange was conveyed to the gardens of Seville. 
No traveller has in a positive manner established the 
native country of the true Orange ; and it is nearly alike 
