Like many, I particularly love the ice skating events. Maybe that's because I've never ice skated before, and I'm in awe of those who do.
TODAY'S TOPIC
I'm not here to talk about the Olympics. I want to talke about things that are ordianry yet amazing.
Like the navel orange I peeled for breakfast. I was stripping away the rind from the orangish-pink flesh when I started wondering how the navel orange came into being. I was pretty sure that it had to be have been created by some kind of hybrid technique so I looked up the history.
Yes, it was a hybrid—created by Mother Nature. Surprise!
In 1820, in a Brazilian monestary garden, someone saw a mutated orange growing on a tree. This was a seedless mutation, possibly derived from a Selecta orange tree.
The mutated tree produced a small "twin" fruit at the base of the fruit—something that looked like a human navel thus the origin of the name.
Horticulturists began grafting the mutated tree to other trees until there were enough for export. It took more than 50 years for the navel orange tree to be introduced in the U.S.
When the newly-formed USDA received 12 cuttings from Brazil, someone there gave 2 cuttings to Eliza Tibbets of Riverside, California. She planted them in 1873 which gave birth to a billion-dollar industry.
The mutation of the orange tree means its fruit is seedless and sterile so all navel orange trees are technically clones of that original 1820 tree, continued through grafting.
The trees planted in California were named Washington Navel Oranges because they came from the USDA in Washington, D.C.
The trees planed in California thrived because the climate was perfect for the, and the citrus industry in the state simply boomed.
The "belly button" at the bottom is actually a conjoined twin fruit that aborted during development.
The original tree planted by Eliza Tibbets is now a California Historic Landmark.
TAKEAWAY TRUTH
Learning all this made the sweet navel orange I ate even more delicious and satisfying. Have you eaten an orange lately?
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