CITRUS PEDIGREE: HOW POPULAR FRUITS APPEARED
The fact that tangerines, lemons, oranges, grapefruits and other citrus fruits are very close relatives is an obvious fact. But which of them was a great–great-great-grandfather, and who was the youngest grandson? Who is a parent to whom, and who is a brother? In fact, this story is more complicated than any clever detective. Scientists have managed to restore the true pedigree of the citrus family relatively recently. To do this, they needed to study the genomes of 58 (!) plant species.
Today it is believed that citrus fruits appeared somewhere in the southeastern foothills of the Himalayas before the appearance of man. The first of its kind is considered to be a fruit called poncirus. This is something like a spherical inedible lemon, only very small – literally 3-4 centimeters in diameter. Its ancient varieties have been found in sediments dating back 6-8 million years. Later, due to changes in climatic conditions (a common thing in those ancient times), sudden speciation began. And now, instead of one poncirus, several contenders for the title of head of the family appeared at once.
As a result of that very large–scale study, scientists came to the conclusion that there were as many as 10 grandparents: seven came from Asia, and three from Australia. Some of them have already died out, but they managed to take part in a genetic attraction that gave us a variety of species and varieties of citrus fruits. However, for simplicity, the citron, mandarin and pomelo that have survived till this day are called the base. All these species mutated so easily and willingly that it is still unclear which crosses occurred in the wild and which after domestication.
Citron is a large thick–rooted sour-bitter lemon, very sensitive to cold. Now it is used only in perfumery, but once it was a delicacy. For example, Alexander the Great brought him to Europe from the Indian campaign. In the process of domestication, citron turned into lime, and from crossing citron with bitter orange – a modern, familiar lemon. The phrase "bitter orange" appeared here for a reason: before the XV century, all oranges were sour and only in the time of Columbus, as a result of centuries-old breeding, fruits appeared that you can eat without wincing.
The orange itself was obtained from crossing the more ancient mandarin and pomelo, which then, respectively, also could not boast of sweetness. But the grapefruit, beloved by many, is already a younger relative, which was the result of the hybridization of sweet orange and pomelo, and its mass use in food generally began only 300 years ago.
It’s interesting that citrus fruits spread very unevenly around the world. If, for example, citrons were known in Europe 2.5 thousand years ago – during antiquity, then lemons got there only during the Crusades, oranges – in the era of great geographical discoveries. But the much more archaic mandarin appeared in Europe only in the XIX century – it was brought from overseas by the Neapolitan botanist Michel Tenor. Gradually, tangerines began to be grown not only in Italy, but also in Spain and France, and only then the fruit migrated to America.
So today, when you peel a juicy orange, slice a sweet tangerine or squeeze the juice from a fragrant lemon, you are literally touching a history that goes back millions of years!
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