ORANGE, Citrus aurantium.
This is a native of India, being found in the forests on the borders of Sylhet, and also on the Neilgherries and in Orissa, perhaps also in China. The Asiatic names for the orange and lemon also indicate the south and east of Asia as their native country.
The Sanskrit Naga-ranga and the Arabic Naranj are no doubt the Naranja (Spanish), Arancia (Italian), whence we have aurantium and orange ; and those for the lemon are Sanskrit Nimbuka, Bengali Nibu, Hindi Nimu and Limbu. Also Persian and Arabian authors do not, as is their wont, give any Greek synonym of either ; but of the citron, which is supposed to have been known to Romans, they say that marseeska is the Yunani, and atrogha the Syrian name, neither of which terms have been traced.
The orange has been largely cultivated, and now includes as varieties, the common sweet orange, the Seville or bitter orange (var. Bigaradia), the Mandarine orange of China (var. Nobilis, sub-var. Mandarinum), the Tangerine (var. Nobilis, sub var. Tangerina), Citrus Bergamium, Risso ; C. duleis, Volkniaer. The Shaddock (C. decumana) and Forbidden Fruit (C. Paradisi) are also sub varieties. The rind and flowers of C. Bergamium yield the bergamote oil of commerce ; and C. Bigaradia, Duhamel, yields the neroli oil, so delicious and costly as a perfume.
The orange tree attains a height of 16 or 20 feet, and, like others of the genus, bears the fruit at all ages at the same time with the flowers. Though a native of India, it does not ripen its fruit there until the winter, and hence has been able to travel so much farther north than others of its compatriots. The Coolee orange of China, the Ch'ang of the Chinese, is a large thorny tree, but there is also a small variety. Its fruit has a thin, yellow, closely adhering skin, and fine but rather sharp flavour ; marmalade is made of the fruit. The kan or chii or sha-kan of the Chinese is the red-skinned variety, the Citrus nobilis of authors ; its rind is connected with the endocarp by many loose threads. It grows in Central China, and its fruit is smaller and sweeter than that of the Coolee orange ; it is used as dessert, and its peel is exported to Japan. In'the Dekhan the finest sorts are the cintra, cowlah, and a small sweet orange which grows on a tree more like a creeper. The principal method of culture is by
budding, the stocks generally being either seed lings or cuttings from the sweet lime. The best cintra, with a thin close rind, is produced upon the seedling stock, and it is said that the fruit grown upon the sweet lime stock is generally loose and soft ; this is very perceptible with some of the oranges. The best time for budding is in the cold season. In Tenasserim, the trees are often exceed ingly prolific. A seedling planted produced in the ninth year more than two thousand oranges. In the island of St. Michael, in the Azores, a single tree has been said to produce 20,000 oranges fit for exportation.
The leaves are rather bitter, and contain essen tial oil. The fragrant oil of neroli is afforded by the flowers. The berries while unripe are gathered, dried, and turned in the lathe to the size of peas, and are used in issues on account of their fragrant odour. The rind or peel is bitter and aromatic, and affords a very useful stomachic tincture and syrup. The juice of the ripe fruit contains sugar, malic and citric acids, citrate of lime, mucilage, albumen, and gum. Like the lemonjuice, it makes an excellent cooling drink, and. is an invaluable specific in the treatment of scorbutic diseases. The fruit is eaten as a dessert, is candied, and is made into marmalade. When of a small size, the fruit which falls off is dried, and forms the Curacoa, oranges, employed in flavouring curacoa. One variety of the orange fruit is in high estimation amongst the Tamil medical practitioners, who suppose that it purifies the blood, improves the appetite, and cures catarrh. The wood is only met with as an object of curiosity ; it is of a yellow colour, but devoid of smell.
Orange Peel, Chin-pi, Hung-pi, CHIN. ; Post i-Turanj, PERS. This is the peel of the various kinds of orange fruit. It is used as a stomachic, stimulant, antispasmodic.
Orange Zest, or orange threads, the Kiuh-peh or Kiuh-lo of the Chinese, are the dried threads of the fruit that cover the pulp of the sweet orange, prolongations of the endocarp.—Riddell ; Mason ; O'Sh. ; Ainslie ; M. B. J. R.; Tredgold ; Boyle, Ill.