Citrus aurantium

The sour orange is grown across the warm world as an ornamental and even a street tree, and stands somewhat naturalized in Florida. The fruit is famous for marmalade and useful little else, since the flesh is fiercely sour and bitter, not for eating out of hand. This particular unnamed selection has a Woodlanders story: we propagated the tree from a single specimen found growing on the edge of an abandoned sandy field in a remote corner of Appling County, Georgia, with no house anywhere near. What drew us was the crop, abundant, large, and very showy, loose-skinned and easy to peel.

Easy to peel, yes, and utterly inedible. The fruits tasted, in a word, nasty. So here is a handsome orange to plant purely for looks, and as a well-deserved treat for anyone inclined to help themselves to fruit that is not theirs.

Beyond the garden, the sour orange, Citrus aurantium, carries one of the deepest medicinal and culinary histories of any citrus. The fragrant flowers yield neroli and orange-blossom water for perfume and flavor; the bitter peel flavors liqueurs and marmalade; and in traditional Chinese medicine the dried immature fruit and peel, zhi shi and zhi qiao, have been used for centuries as digestive remedies. In the garden here, though, the tree earns a place for the showy fruit and the sweetly fragrant spring bloom.