Orange
Orange is a citrus fruit and a hybrid between pomelo and mandarin. This evergreen flowery tree is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world. Also known as the sweet orange, this tree delivers a delicious sweet fruit hesperidium fruit, which is actually a type of berry. Most commonly, the fruit of orange is eaten out of hand or processed to extract the orange juice.
Even though oranges remind us of distant tropical islands and exotic rainy forests, the sweet orange doesn’t occur in the wild. This hybrid species had been first cultivated in southern China and Europeans became acquainted with it in the 11th century, and used it widely for medical purposes. Italian traders have spread the seed to the Mediterranean area in mid 15th century, and since then the sweet orange has rapidly spread all around the globe, being quickly adopted as a delicious juicy fruit. The sailors from the Old Continent planted Oranges along their trade routes to prevent scurvy – same as the pirates of the Caribbean used lemon and rum, to make their favorite alcoholic beverage (and a natural remedy) called Grog. People of the freshly discovered Americas have introduced rum to the old Europe, while Europeans (Christopher Columbus himself!) brought the seeds of oranges, lemons and citrons to the Caribbean.
