the Citron-tree: A genus of the polyadelphia order, belonging to the iofandrae class of plants. The calyx is quinquefied; the petals oblong, and five in number; the antherae 20, with their filaments grown together so as to form various pencils. The fruit is an unilocular berry.

Species. I. The Medica, or Citron-tree, hath an upright smooth trunk, divided at top into a branchy strong-shooting, full head, from about 5 to 15 feet high, adorned with large oval, spear-shaped, thick leaves, having linear foot-stalks, and numerous flowers from the sides of the branches, succeeded by very large oblong oval, pointed, rough-rinded fruit. The varieties are citron-tree with four fruit; with sweet fruit; with long fruit; with warted fruit; with recurved fruit; and with blotched leaves.

II. The Lima, or Lemon-tree, hath an upright smooth trunk, divided upward into a branchy regular head; from 12 to 15 feet high; large, oval, spear-shaped, pointed, slightly sawed leaves, on linear foot-stalks; and many flowers from the sides of the branches succeeded by large oval fruit prominent at the top. The varieties are, the lemon-tree with four fruit; with sweetish fruit; with very large fruit called Imperial lemon; with pear-shaped fruit; with furrowed fruit; with cluttered fruit; with childing fruit; with whitish fruit; with tricolor striped fruit; with silver striped leaves; and with double flowers.

III. The Aurantium, or Orange-tree, hath an upright trunk dividing upward into a branchy, regular head, from 5 to 10 or 12 feet high; oval, spear-shaped, entire leaves, having winged foot-stalks and numerous white flowers at the sides of the branches, succeeded by globular fruit compressed at both ends. The most noted varieties are, 1. The Seville orange. This is a very handsome tree, and the hardiest of any; as in this country it shoots freely, produces large and beautiful leaves, flowers stronger, &c. The fruit is large, rough, rinded, and four, of excellent quality for economical uses. 2. The China orange. This tree has moderately sized leaves, and a smooth, thin-rinded, sweet fruit, of which there are several varieties in warm countries, where they grow in the open ground. 3. The great Shaddock orange, or pumplemose, grows larger and stronger than the foregoing, with large, thick, and somewhat furred leaves, and very large fruit, having a reddish pulp. It derives the name of Shaddock from one of that name that first brought it from the East Indies. 4. The Forbidden-fruit-tree, in trunk, leaves, and flowers, very much resembles the common orange-tree; but the fruit, when ripe, is larger and longer than the biggest orange. It has somewhat the taste of a shaddock; but far exceeds that, as well as the best orange, in its delicious taste and flavour. 5. The Horned orange is a tree of moderate size, producing fruit which divide, and the rind runs out into divisions like horns. 6. The Hermaphrodite orange is a common sized tree, producing fruit shaped partly like an orange and partly like a citron. 7. The Dwarf orange tree, or nutmeg orange, has a long stem and small bushy head, growing two or three feet high; small oval leaves in clusters; and numerous flowers in clusters, covering the branches, succeeded by very small fruit. There are the most remarkable varieties of the three foregoing species of citrus: but besides these there are a great number of others; and indeed in those countries where they grow naturally, the varieties may be multiplied without end, like those of our apples and pears. The flowers of all the species and varieties are formed each of five spreading petals, appearing here principally in May and June; and the fruit continue setting in June and July, and ripen the year following.

IV. The Trifoliata, or Japonese citron, is a thorny shrub growing naturally in Japan, where it is likewise known by the names of Gees, and Karatals banna. The trunk, we are told by Kämpfer, acquires by age and culture the thickness of a tree. The branches and shoots are unequal; in some parts compressed, in others swelling, especially about the spines. These proceed singly from the stem and branches; are straight, run out from a broad base into a very sharp point; and are protruded from the wood, with the common bark of which they are likewise invested. The wood is loose and soft; the bark of a shining green, moist and easily parting from the wood. The leaves are few in number, sawed on the edges, veined, placed without order, but generally growing under the spines. They grow by threes, like those of trefoil, upon the extremity of a common foot-stalk which is furnished on each side with a membranaceous fringe or margin, somewhat resembling the pedicles of the orange. The upper surface of the leaves is of a bright lucid green, the lower dark and herbaceous. The flowers, which resemble those of the medlar, proceed singly from the arm-pits of the leaves; are white, possessed of no great degree of fragrance, and consist of five petals. The fruit is equally beautiful with a middle-sized orange; their internal structure is also pretty much the same; only the pulp is glutinous, of an unpleasant smell, and a harsh disagreeable taste. The seeds have the same taste with the pulp, and are shaped exactly like those of the orange.

Culture. The three first species merit particular attention. They are elegant evergreens, rising in this country from about 5 to 10 feet in height; forming full and handsome heads, closely garnished with beautiful large leaves all the year round, and putting forth a profusion of sweet flowers in spring and early in summer; which even in this climate are often succeeded by abundance of fruit that sometimes arrive at tolerable perfection. Though all the varieties were originally obtained by seed, yet the only certain method of continuing the approved varieties is by budding or inarching them on stocks raised from seed to a proper size. As the young trees, however, are brought in plenty from abroad, this method is seldom practised in this country: but for curiosity, it may be done by those who are so inclined, in the following manner: Early in the spring procure some kernels, which may be had in plenty from rotten fruits, or others that are properly ripened, observing that for stocks, the citron, lemon, and Seville-orange, as being the freest shooters, are to be preferred; and of these the citron is the strongest. Sow the kernels in March, in pots of rich light earth half an inch deep, and plunge them in a hot... hot-bed under frames and glasses. Dung or tan may be used, but the latter is preferable, giving air, and frequent sprinklings of water. In two or three weeks, the plants will come up; and in six or eight weeks more, they will be advanced four or five inches or more in height. You must now give them more air and water; and about the middle of June harden them to the full air, in which let them remain till October; then move them into the green house, to stand till the spring, and in March or April plant them singly in small pots; being careful to shake them out of the seed pots with their roots entire. They must be watered immediately after planting, and the watering must be occasionally repeated. After this they are to be treated as woody exotics of the green-house; and in a year or two the largest of those designed for stocks will be fit for budding.

The operation for budding is performed in the month of August, and is done in the common way; only the buds must be taken from trees of a good kind that bear well. As soon as the operation is finished, the pots with their plants must be placed in the greenhouse, or in a glass-case; or, where there is the convenience of a spare bark-pit, where the heat of the bark is almost exhausted, the pots may be plunged therein for two or three weeks. In either case, however, the air must be admitted freely by opening the front glasses; allowing also a slight shade of mats in the middle of hot sunshine days, and supplying them with water every two or three days during this kind of weather. In three or four weeks the buds will be united with the stock; when it will be proper to loosen the bandages, that they may have room to swell; the buds, however, will all remain dormant till the next spring. They may also be propagated by inarching, which is done in the common way; but the method of budding is found to produce much handsomer trees, and therefore is to be preferred. But the most cheap and expeditious method of procuring a collection of these kinds of trees is by having recourse to such as are imported from Spain, Italy, and Portugal. These come over in chests, without any earth to their roots, having their roots and heads a little trimmed: they are commonly from one inch to two or three in diameter in the stem; from two to four or five feet in height; and by the assistance of a bark-bed they readily take root and grow freely; forming as good trees in two years, as could be raised here by inarching or budding in fifteen or twenty. They are sold in the Italian warehouses in London. Their price is from three shillings to a guinea each, according to their size; and they are generally advertised as soon as they arrive, which is early in the spring, and the sooner the better. In the choice of these trees, it must be observed, that they are commonly budded at such height in the stem, as to form heads from about two to four or five feet high; and as they are frequently furnished with two buds, one on each side of the stem, these should be chosen preferably to others; as they will form the most regular heads. Preparatory to their planting, they must be placed for a day or two in tubs of water to plump their bark and roots; after this they must be washed and cleaned, their branches trimmed to half a foot long, and the roots freed from diseased parts, and all the small dried fibres. Then they are to be planted in pots filled with light rich earth; and plunged in a tan-bed, where they are to remain for three or four months; after which they are to be trained to the open air, but will not bear it longer than from the end of May till the middle or end of October.

Sometimes these trees, instead of being kept in pots or tubs, are planted in the full ground; and where this can be done, it is by far the most eligible method. Where this is intended, there must be frames erected for the support of glass and other covers, to defend the plants during inclement weather; and in this situation the trees generally shoot strong, produce large fruit, and may be trained either as wall or standard trees. A south wall, in a dry situation, is proper for training them as wall-trees; against which may be erected wooden frame-work sloping, either fixed or moveable, for the support of glass frames for winter; likewise for the greater protection of the trees in severe frosts, there may be a fire-place with a flue or two carried alongst a low wall in the fronts and ends. To have the trees as standards, a more capacious and lofty glass-case should be erected against the wall, in the manner of a hot-house, but higher; in this one or two rows of orange-trees may be planted, suffering them to run up as standards with only some necessary pruning just to preserve their regularity. In some places there are lofty moveable glass-cases, so that two or three rows of trees are planted in a conspicuous part of the pleasure-ground. In winter the frame is put over them, and in summer wholly taken away; so that they appear like a little orange-grove growing in the open ground. The flowering and fruit-setting season of all the sorts of citrus is in June and July. They are often, especially the orange-trees, greatly loaded with blossoms; and when these stand very thick, it is proper to thin them a little, taking off the smallest. It is also to be observed, that as the trees continue blowing and setting their fruit for three months, when a full crop of fruit is set, it is of benefit to the trees and fruit to gather off the superabundant blossoms as they are produced; though some permit them to remain on account of their appearance.

Uses. The fruits of the citron, lemon, and orange trees, yield very agreeable acid juices; which, besides the uses to which they are commonly applied, answer considerable purposes in medicine. When Commodore Anson failed round the world, his men were so surprisingly recovered from the scurvy by the oranges which they found at the island of Tinian, that it was afterwards thought worthy of the attention of government to inquire into the virtues of these fruits as an antiscorbutic medicine. In Captain Cook's last voyage, he was supplied with a quantity of orange and lemon juice insipidated to a rob; but his opinion of its efficacy is by no means great. The dearness of it is a great objection; and, unless in conjunction with other things, he has not observed its good effects. Sir John Pringle, in his discourse before the Royal Society, when Captain Cook was presented with a medal by that respectable body, differs a little from the Captain's opinion, and thinks that in the sea-scurvy these fruits must necessarily be very efficacious. He approves, however, more of the juices themselves depurated, than the extract of them; as this cannot be prepared without dissipating many of the finer parts. The juice of lemons is very frequently used for neutralising alkaline salts for saline draughts. The citron is seldom used in this country; though its peel, as well as that of the lemon, is candied, and sold as a sweetmeat. The yellow peel of the lemon is an agreeable aromatic, as is also that of the orange; and in cold phlegmatic constitutions they prove excellent stomachics and carminatives, promoting appetite, warming the habit, and strengthening the tone of the viscera. Orange-peel, however, is very considerably warmer than that of lemons, and abounds more in essential oil: to this circumstance, therefore, due regard ought to be had in the use of these medicines. The flavour of orange-peel is likewise less perishable than that of lemons. Both are ingredients in many officinal preparations.

The young fruit of the Seville orange dried are used in medicine under the name of *aurantia curaflavescens*. They are moderately warm bitterish aromatics, of a sufficiently agreeable flavour. The flowers of the orange-tree have been for some time past in great esteem as a perfume. They are highly odoriferous, of a somewhat warm and bitter taste. They yield their flavour by infusion to rectified spirit, and in distillation both to spirit and water. The bitter matter is dissolved in water, and on evaporating the decoction remains entire in the extract. The distilled water was formerly kept in the shops, but on account of the great scarcity of the flowers is now laid aside: it is called by foreign writers *aqua naphae*. An oil distilled from these flowers is brought from Italy under the name of *oleum, or officinaria neralis*.