CamelCaseCondoan hour ago
During lockdown I started growing clementine from seed. One of the interesting details of this genus is polyembryonism: multiple seedlings emerging from one seed. Apparently, one of the seedlings will be a clone of the motherplant and the rest will be the product of pollination/genetic reshuffling. My clementine seeds all had 2 seedlings per seed but other attempts (with lemon I think) yielded 3 or more).
During my reading I came across a lot of contradictory info about the origin of the clementine: some papers say it’s an unknown hybrid, other clearly state it’s a mutation instead of a hybrid. So it’s interesting to read the hybrid parentage in this triangle, stated with confidence.
riffraff10 minutes ago
Chinotto (apparently called mirtle leaves bitter orange in English?) also has some confused origin (perhaps it's a mutation of some other bitter orange, but it's unclear), and afaict it's not in this chart, or I can't find it.
Citrus fruits are fun.
seszettan hour ago
Polyembryony is the reverse of what you think: one embryo is a result of pollination and all the others are clones. The sexual reproduction embryo is often less vigorous and sometimes doesn't develop at all. It makes it easy to reproduce "true" plants, but also makes it difficult to produce hybrids for some species.
jihadjihad10 hours ago
A Persian lime is a cross between a Key lime and a lemon? I never would have guessed that, that's really interesting.
lameda2 hours ago
This is very cool, thank you for building it! I remember reading about the mess of citrus genealogy in John McPhee's Oranges (wonderful book).
fritzo4 hours ago
Inheritance is astonishingly more complex than trees, e.g.
Wong et al. (2024) "A general and efficient representation of ancestral recombination graphs" https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyae100
jlaufop3 hours ago
Interesting, going to read more!
ok_dad9 hours ago
This is cool! I do wish I could search for a specific citrus by name.
jlaufop5 hours ago
Thanks! I'll add it when I get a chance.
smlacy8 hours ago
Seems to be missing the Etrog? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_taxonomy#Citrons
Also, the "click to show search results" is cool but fails for "Arizona Citron" in obvious ways.
Fordec16 minutes ago
Also appears to be missing Yuzu and Sudachi
jlaufop5 hours ago
There are lots of citruses missing; the ones in the chart are only the ones I could find reliable values for (from the sources at the bottom). I'll add more if I can find other reliable sources. For what it's worth, I think the etrog is basically a pure citron variety.
Yeah, that's definitely an issue. If I get a chance, I'll curate images to add!
pazimzadeh4 hours ago
I couldn't find the Seville orange, or what Iranians call Narang
Nevermind, they have the "Sevillan Sour Orange" and a few other sour oranges
madcaptenor7 hours ago
Apparently it's also known as the Greek citron, but I don't see it under that name either.
s0rce4 hours ago
I think the etrog is not a hybrid so it would overlap with the citron
hammock4 hours ago
Missing kumquats (and calamondins and mandarinquats)
s0rce4 hours ago
they discuss that, they were not hybridized to the same extent. They do discuss the key lime ancestry as orthogonal, it would be cool to use a tetrahedron instead to show that.
davidw7 hours ago
Now I wish I could try all of these.
s0rce4 hours ago
There is an annual citrus festival in Riverside, CA where many hybrids are developed.
wgrover2 hours ago
Yes! And every day the California Citrus State Historic Park is open for tours and tasting of various citrus varieties:
dheera7 hours ago
Just walk around San Jose residential neighborhoods, all the combinations are literally dropping everywhere.
cwmoore6 hours ago
There was a great pomelo tree around the corner from me a few years back.