Citrus at Palais Carnoles Menton

One of the most unusual specimens in the garden is the variety ' Bizzaria'. In Menton this is labelled as a 'bigarade' - sour or bitter orange - although the information booklet suggests it is the variety described by Risso in 1818. If so, it would actually be a chimera of a citron and sour orange. However, on my visit in August 2002, I could see no signs of the irregular stripes shown in drawings by Risso and others.

Publicised as 'the largest collection of citrus trees in Europe', I think that INRA in Corsica and IVIA in Spain may disagree! Nonetheless, this is a most interesting collection of mature trees of many varieties. The following list is taken from the booklet on sale at the Palais Carnoles museum shop. Note that the botanical taxonomy, such as grouping sweet oranges and grapefruits under Citrus xaurantium, is not universally agreed by experts.

A further visit in February, 2007, confirmed that this is not the historic Bizzaria citron+orange chimera pictured in several early books about citrus varieties. These warty fruits, suffering a bit from mealy bug, were ripening patchily to orange, but showed no evidence of being produced by a graft hybrid chimera.

Citroncirus 'Troyer' (citrange)

Citrus x aurantiifolia (Chrstm.) Swing
-'Palestine' (lime de Perse)
-'Tahiti' (lime de Perse)

Citrus x aurantium L.
-'Alger' ? (orange douce)
-'Bittertsweet' (bigarade)
-'Bizzaria' (bigarade)
-'Bouquet'
-'Bouquetier de Nice a Fleures Doubles'
-'Bouquetier de Nice ' ?
-'Buckeye' (orange douce)
-'Cadenera' (orange douce)
-'Calabrese' (orange douce)
-'Centennial' (orange douce)
-'Chelif' ? (orange douce)
-'Demi Sanguine' ? (orange douce)
-'Double Fine Améliorée' (orange douce)
-'Duncan' (pamplemousse)
-'Espagnole' ? (orange douce)
-'Granito' (bigarade)
-'Hamlin' (orange douce)
-'Large Chinotto' (chinois=orange amere)
-'Maltaise Sanguine' (orange douce)

-'Marsh' (pamplemousse)
-'Mc Carty' (pamplemousse)
-'Moghrabi' (orange douce)
-'Moro' (orange douce)
-'Ortanique' (tangor)
-'Pearl' (tangelo)
-'Royal' (pamplemousse)
-'Sampson' (tangelo)
-'Shambar' (pamplemousse)
-'Sotchi' (pamplemousse)
-'Spanish Sanguinelli' (orange douce)
-'Star Ruby' (pamplemousse)
-'Tarocco' (orange douce)
-'Temple' (mandarine)
-'Thomson' (Navel?) (orange douce)
-'Valencia' (orange douce)
-'Valencia Rohde Red' (orange douce)
-'Washington (Navel?)' (orange douce)

Citrus x bergamia Risso et Poit.
-'Castagnaro' (bergamote)

Citrus hystrix DC. (combava)

Citrus x limon (L.) Osbeck (citron)
-'Eureka'
-'Lunario'
-'Menton'
-'Mesero'
-'Poire du Commandeur'
-'Quatre Saisons'
-'Variegated'

Citrus maxima (Burm.) Merr. (pomelo)
-'Kao Pan'
-'Pink'
-'Reinking'
-'Sunshine'

Citrus medica L. (cedrat)
-'Corsican'
-'Di Firenze'
-'Rhobs el Arsa'

Citrus 'Meyer' (citron de Meyer)

Citrus reticulata Blanco
-'Caffin' (clementine)
-'Clémentine' (clémentine)
-'Carvalhal' (mandarine)
-'Cleopatra' (mandarine)
-'Fairchild' (mandarine)
-'Fortune' (mandarine)
-'Fremont' (mandarine)
-'Kara' (mandarine)
-'Malvasio' (mandarine)
-'Mandarine' (mandarine)
-'Nova' (mandarine)
-'Ponkan' (mandarine)
-'Kowano' (satsuma)
-'Wase' (satsuma)

Citrus limon + C. x aurantium (chimere ou hybride de greffe)

Fortunella japonica (Thunb.) Swing. (marumi)
-'Margarita' (nagami)
-'Obovata' (fukushu)

Severinia buxifolia (Poir.) Ten.
(buis de Chine)

Citrus medica 'Cedrat de Florence'.
Possibly the same variety as 'Florentina' and 'Jerusalem'. Orange coloured, about the size of an extra large navel orange.

The ripe pummelos, Citrus grandis or Citrus maxima, were particularly impressive in February 2007, with huge fruits growing on quite small trees. The French name for this fruit is 'pamplemousse'. Confusingly, 'pamplemousse' and 'pomélo' are also used for the grapefruit, Citrus paradisi.

There are several trees in the Palais Carnolès collection which are labelled 'Chimère citron/orange'. These are graft hybrids between lemon and orange parents where the genetic material remains distinct and separate within the tree and comes to the surface randomly. So some parts are lemon and some parts orange. This is quite different from one variety grafted onto another. Generally the lemon seemed to dominate. One tree had a single orange fruit and all the others were lemons. Others had a few fruits that were mainly lemon but with stripes of orange rind.