maxima Sweet orange C. Why south-central China? Mandarin oranges C.

Citrus fruit origins -

Tart citrus fruits vary from olive-sized kumquats to four-pound pomelos. Most are round, but some, such as the finger lime, are elongated like sausages. Department of Agriculture, who studies the genetic preservation of citrus and other fruits. Trying to pinpoint exactly where this diverse, heavily cultivated group of fruits originated—previously hypothesized as anywhere from the Himalayan foothills to the balmy jungles of northeastern Australia—has soured the topic for many researchers.

The study, published last week in Nature Genetics, analyzed the genomes of hundreds of species across the orange subfamily Aurantioideae—and revealed that citrus-related fruits likely originated on the ancient Indian subcontinent before further diversifying their sharp taste in south-central China.

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Aurantioideae is a titanic taxonomic group encompassing more than 33 genera of fruit-bearing plants found throughout Asia, Africa and Polynesia. This includes the Citrus genus, whose members such as oranges, grapefruit, lemons and limes are cultivated worldwide.

Citrus linczangensis sp n. Plant Sci. Clift, P. Reconstructing chemical weathering, physical erosion and monsoon intensity since 25 Ma in the northern South China Sea: a review of competing proxies.

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Download references. Please see Supplementary Note 11 for funding information. US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, California, USA. Centro de Genómica, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias IVIA , Moncada, Valencia, Spain.

Javier Terol, Victoria Ibanez, Antonio López-García, Estela Pérez-Román, Carles Borredá, Concha Domingo, Francisco R. Computational Genomics Department, Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe CIPF , Valencia, Spain. AGAP Research Unit, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique INRA , San Giuliano, France.

Citrus Research and Education Center CREC , Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences IFAS , University of Florida, Lake Alfred, Florida, USA. AGAP Research Unit, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement CIRAD , Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe, France.

Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California, USA. Functional Genomics Node, Spanish National Institute of Bioinformatics ELIXIR-es at CIPF, Valencia, Spain.

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Center for Integrative Genomics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA. Molecular Genetics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Okinawa, , Japan.

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. and G. developed the project and acted as project coordinators and provided scientific leadership; G. developed methods for admixture analysis and interspecific phasing, and performed comparative genome analysis. and M. contributed 26 genomes; J.

and J. provided bioinformatics support; J. and E. contributed to the study of the IDH gene; V. and C. contributed to the variant analysis of candidate genes using genome-wide association studies; A.

assisted in the biogeographic study; A. and F. contributed to the description of citrus accessions and discriminatory characteristics; P. contributed to germplasm, admixture analysis and hypothesis on the origin of cultivated citrus species; D. contributed one citrus genome; M.

contributed seven citrus genomes; F. contributed perspective garnered from more than 35 years of experience working on the genetic improvement of citrus; G. wrote the manuscript; G. contributed the hypothesis on the origin and dispersal of citrus. Correspondence to Guohong Albert Wu , Daniel S.

Rokhsar or Manuel Talon. Reviewer Information Nature thanks J. Ross-Ibarra, P. Wincker and the other anonymous reviewer s for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Publisher's note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

a , Geographical distribution of the genus Citrus in southeast Asia and Australia. Distribution is based on documented reports on the presence of wild genotypes representative of pure citrus species blue numbers , admixtures red numbers and relevant interspecific hybrids black numbers , growing freely in non-cultivated areas.

Numbers are as in Supplementary Table 1. glauca ; Microcitrus australasica ; Microcitrus australis ; 4, C. micrantha ; 5—8, C. ichangensis ; 9—15, C. medica ; 16—19, C. maxima ; 20—22, C.

reticulata Sun Chu Sha Kat ; 23—25, C. tachibana ; 26, C. mangshanensis ; 27—29, Citrus spp. mandarins ; 30—33, C. sinensis ; 34, 35, Citrus limon probably not truly wild genotypes ; 36, 37, Citrus limonia ; 38, Citrus jambhiri ; 39—42, C. aurantium ; 43, Citrus aurantifolia probably not truly wild genotypes ; 44, 45, Fortunella and C.

reticulata hybrid. The red star indicates the location of the C. linczangensis fossil from the Late Miocene of Lincang b , Citrus chloroplast genome phylogeny rooted with Severinia. The analysis was performed on 58 citrus accessions and 2 outgroup genera, Poncirus and Severinia.

The maximum likelihood tree as inferred from PhyML is shown. Percentage statistical support for the nodes is based on bootstrap replicates. c , Citrus nuclear genome phylogeny rooted with Severinia. Both Bayesian and maximum likelihood trees yield the same topology with highly supported branches.

The maximum likelihood tree reconstructed from PhyML is shown. All branches have posterior probability 1. a , Segmental ancestry of 46 citrus accessions derived from the three progenitor species of C.

medica CI , C. maxima PU and C. reticulata MA. UNK, unknown. Mandarins are divided into three types with type-1 representing pure mandarins. Types 2 and 3 are determined by the pummelo admixture pattern. b , Segmental ancestry of an Australian finger lime. Genomic regions are coloured in grey if segmental ancestry cannot be determined.

a , Distinct admixed pummelo haplotypes among mandarins, oranges and grapefruit are shown in different colours; the C. reticulata haplotypes are masked. The admixture pattern separates the mandarins into three groups, with type-1 representing pure mandarins.

Type-2 mandarins contain a small amount of pummelo admixture derived from two C. Garijo ed. de Córdoba, Cordoba. Ibn Wahshiyya Al-filā a n-nabatīyya.

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in Hebrew, with English Abstr. Liran-Frisch, N. Resling, Tel Aviv, Israel in Hebrew. Loret, V. Leroux, Paris. Mariotti-Lippi, M. Miller, A. Nicolosi, E. Pagnoux, C. Pang, X. Resources Crop Evol. Ramón-Laca, L. Russo-Ermolli, E. The gardens of Villa A at Oplontis through pollen and phytolith analysis of soil samples.

Clarke and N. Muntasser eds. ACLS Humanities E-Books Series, New York in press. Pollen morphology of Citrus medica versus Citrus x limon. In: V. Zech, G. Fiorentino, and S. Coubray eds. The history and archaeology of the citrus fruit from the Far East to the Mediterranean: Introductions, diversifications, uses in press.

Schwartz, D. Yad Ben Zvi, Jerusalem. Schweingruber, F. Edition Paul Haupt, Bern. Scora, R. Torrey Bot. Club Spiegel-Roy, P. Press, Cambridge and New York. Sussman, V.

The Bialik Institute, Jerusalem. Thanheiser, U. In: C. Hope and G. Bowen eds. Dakhleh oasis project: Preliminary report on the — to — field seasons. English translation by A. Hort, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA.

Tolkowsky, S. The Bialik Institute, Jerusalem in Hebrew. van der Veen, M. Maxfield and D. Peacock eds. Survey and excavations at Mons Claudianus —, volume 2.

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of California, Berkeley. Weisskopf, A. Smith ed. of global arch. Springer, Berlin, Germany. Wu, G. Xianghong, Y. Zohary, D. Press, Oxford. I am grateful to Marijke van der Veen and David Karp for the exchange of thoughts and ideas.

Oded Lipschits provided assistance with the interpretation of Biblical and other Jewish texts, and Itamar Ben-Ezra and Mark Cavanagh helped with figures preparation.

Photographs by Clara Amit were made available thanks to the courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority. E-mail: langgut post. Email : webmaster ashs. JOURNALS About ASHS Publications HortScience HortTechnology Journal of American Society for Horticultural Science.

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Search this journal Search all journals. Article Sections Material and Methods Botanical remains Art artifacts Ancient texts Cultivation versus familiarity Results and Discussion Citron C.

medica Lemon C. limon Sour bitter orange C. aurantium Lime C. aurantifolia Pummelo C. maxima Sweet orange C. sinensis Mandarin C. reticulata Summary. Previous Article Next Article. The Citrus Route Revealed: From Southeast Asia into the Mediterranean.

Author: Dafna Langgut Dafna Langgut The Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Ancient Environments, The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, Israel Search for other papers by Dafna Langgut in This Site Google Scholar Close. Article Category: Research Article Online Publication Date: Jun Free access.

Download PDF. Full Text PDF Figures References Contributor Notes Article Metrics. Abstract Today, citrus orchards are a major component of the Mediterranean landscape and one of the most important cultivated fruits in the region; however, citrus is not native to the Mediterranean Basin, but originated in Southeast Asia.

Keywords: citrus ; Citrus medica ; citron ; lemon ; botanical remains ; elite products. Material and Methods This article combines the following line of evidence to trace the route of the western diffusion of citrus: botanical remains, art artifacts, and ancient texts. Botanical remains The botanical remains discussed in this study include seeds as well as some other fruit remains such as rinds , wood, charcoals, and fossil pollen grains.

Art artifacts Citrus fruits and trees appear in several forms of ancient artifacts, namely reliefs, wall paintings, mosaics, and coins. Ancient texts In this study, several sources of ancient texts have been used such as Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Arabic texts; these written sources were recently reviewed, respectively Langgut, ; Pagnoux et al.

Cultivation versus familiarity The presence of pollen grains of insect-pollinated citrus is direct evidence of its actual growth in a given region see below , unlike other archaeobotanical remains seeds, rinds, charcoal and wood remains, and chemical analysis that may reflect importation of fruit, small wooden objects, or even timber rather than the actual growing of the tree.

Results and Discussion Different characteristics of each of the citrus species discussed in this article are summarized in Table 1. Table 1. The westward migration of citrus species. Citron C. medica The citron was the first citrus fruit to reach the Mediterranean, probably via Persia Langgut, ; Langgut et al.

Textual evidence. The citron in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. Summary and conclusions about the western diffusion of C. Lemon C. limon Until recently, the arrival of the lemon to the Mediterranean area was linked, like the arrival of many other citrus fruits, to the Muslim conquest Table 1.

Sour bitter orange C. aurantium The hybridization that resulted in the formation of the sour orange most probably took place in southern China or northern Indo-china Weisskopf and Fuller, Lime C.

aurantifolia This natural hybrid of citron and papeda C. Pummelo C. maxima This true Citrus species originated under tropical conditions, probably in mainland Southeast Asia Miller and Gross, ; Weisskopf and Fuller, and the Malay Archipelago Scora sinensis The first mention of the sweet orange in Europe is sometimes said to be in the archives of the Italian city of Savona, in reticulata Mandarin C.

Summary It is obvious that if studied intensively, each particular citrus species would reveal a number of different dispersal circumstances and that many people were involved in the introduction of citrus fruits from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean. Roose, M. Krueger, R.

Rhodes, A. Magna Grecia 3 Coubray, S. Magna Grecia 3 false. Palevol 9 Coubray, S. Zech-Matterne, V. Mazurier, A. Palevol 9 false. Ollitrault, F. Garcia-Lor, A.

Luro, F. Navarro, L. Ollitrault, P. Fang, D. Boivin, N. Hoogervorst, T. Allaby, R. Jr Hu, X. Thulin, B. Gadot, Y. Porat, N. Gleason, K. Burrell, B. Gross, B. Deng, Z. Gentile, A. La Malfa, S.

Continella, G. Tribulato, E. El-Otmani, M. Negbi, M. Celant, A. Hu, C. Deng, X. Romano, P.

By Jack Tamisiea. Tart citrus fruits origlns from Consistent weight loss kumquats oriigns four-pound pomelos. Most are Citrus fruit origins, but some, such as the finger Citrus fruit origins, are frult like sausages. Department of Agriculture, who studies the genetic preservation of citrus and other fruits. Trying to pinpoint exactly where this diverse, heavily cultivated group of fruits originated—previously hypothesized as anywhere from the Himalayan foothills to the balmy jungles of northeastern Australia—has soured the topic for many researchers. Appreciated throughout the world Protein intake and antioxidant activity origis flavour, citrus fruits Protein intake and antioxidant activity for centuries Citrus fruit origins one frujt the most economically valuable origiins, especially in the Mediterranean basin. But this Greek yogurt toppings not always the case. Now, a recent study has solved Cirrus mystery of the history Cltrus citrus fruits—and is also giving us clues about how to get tastier and healthier oranges. The most accepted hypothesis to date was that the transformation of the citrus into edible fruit was relatively recent, after its introduction and establishment on the shores of the Mediterranean. The island of Corsica was identified as the main candidatelargely because it is the birthplace of the Corsican or sweet citron. This discovery widens the focus on how the subsequent expansion of these plants towards the west unfolded, through Persia.