''Citrus unshiu'' is a semi-seedless and easy-peeling

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. The genus ''Citrus'' is nati ...

species, also known as miyagawa mandarin, unshu mikan, cold hardy mandarin, satsuma mandarin, satsuma orange, naartjie, and tangerine. ''Citrus unshiu'' was named after Unshu (Wenzhou), a famous production area of mandarin oranges in China, in the late

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

of Japan. It is said to have originated in either Japan or China, and because of its name, it is often described as originating in China;The Satsuma Mandarin
University of Florida "probable origin in Kyushu islands, Japan or imported from China to Japan." however, due to multiple genetic studies conducted in the 2010s, the theory that the maternal species of ''Citrus unshiu'' was '' Kishu'' (''Citrus kinokuni'') and the paternal species was ''Kunenbo'' (''Citrus nobilis'' Lour. var. ''kunip'') and that it was created in the

Satsuma province was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Satsuma" in . Its abbreviation is . History Satsuma's provincial capital was Satsumasendai. D ...

in Japan became more credible. During the Edo period, ''Kishu'' was the most popular because there was a popular superstition that eating ''Citrus unshiu (Satsuma)'' without seeds made people more prone to infertility. ''Citrus unshiu'' became popular in Japan after the modernization started in the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. It was introduced to the West from the Satsuma region of Japan in 1878.

Nomenclature

The unshiu is known as () in China, and in Japan (or formally , the Japanese reading of the characters used in Chinese). In both languages, the name means "honey citrus of

Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), Chinese postal romanization, historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province of China, province in the China, People's Republic ...

" (a city in

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by ...

province, China). An alternative Chinese name, (), means "seedless

mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

". One of the English names for the fruit, ''satsuma'', is derived from the former

Satsuma Province was an old province of Japan that is now the western half of Kagoshima Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Satsuma" in . Its abbreviation is . History Satsuma's provincial capital was Satsumasendai. D ...

in Japan, from which these fruits were first exported to the West. The

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...

name is also used in

South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the List of dialects of the English language, set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British Empire, British settlers first arrived in the South African re ...

. It came originally from the Tamil word , meaning citrus.

Classification

Under the Tanaka classification system, ''Citrus unshiu'' is considered a separate species from the

. Under the Swingle system, unshius are considered to be a group of mandarin varieties. Genetic analysis has shown the Satsuma to be a highly inbred mandarin- pomelo hybrid, with 22% of its genome, a larger proportion than seen in most mandarins, coming from pomelo. It arose when a mandarin of the low-pomelo huanglingmiao/kishu variety (placed in ''C. reticulata'' by Tanaka) was crossed with a pomelo or pomelo hybrid, then the resulting cultivar was

backcross Backcrossing is a crossing of a hybrid with one of its parents or an individual genetically similar to its parent, to achieve offspring with a genetic identity closer to that of the parent. It is used in horticulture, animal breeding, and produ ...

ed with another huanglingmiao/kishu mandarin. and Supplement

Characteristics

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''Citrus unshiu'' is one of the sweetest citrus varieties. It is usually seedless, and is about the size of other

mandarin orange The mandarin orange (''Citrus reticulata''), also known as the mandarin or mandarine, is a small citrus tree fruit. Treated as a distinct species of Orange (fruit), orange, it is usually eaten plain or in fruit salads. Tangerines are a group of ...

s (''Citrus reticulata''). Satsumas are known for their loose, leathery skin; the fruit is very easily peeled in comparison to other citrus fruits. The rind is often smooth to slightly rough with the shape of a medium to small flattened sphere. Satsumas usually have 10 to 12 easily separable segments with tough membranes. The flesh is particularly delicate, and cannot withstand the effects of careless handling. Coloring of the fruit is often dependent on climate; satsumas grown in humid areas may be ripe while the skin is still green while those grown in areas with cool night temperatures may see a brilliant reddish orange skin at peak. Satsumas are cold-hardy, and when planted in colder locations, the fruit becomes sweeter from the colder temperatures. A mature satsuma tree can survive down to or even for a few hours. Of the edible citrus varieties, only the

kumquat Kumquats (; zh, 金桔), or cumquats in Australian English, are a group of small fruit-bearing trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae. Their taxonomy is disputed. They were previously classified as forming the now-historical genus ''Fort ...

is more cold-hardy. Satsumas rarely have any thorns, an attribute that also makes them popular. They can be grown from seed, which takes about eight years until the first fruits are produced, or grafted onto other citrus rootstocks, such as trifoliate orange.

History

United States of America

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

brought the fruit from Asia to North America in the 18th century, starting groves in the Jesuit Plantation upriver from

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...

). The municipal street "Orange" in New Orleans, was originally named "Rue Des Orangers" and the site of the Jesuit grove. The groves were later re-cultivated farther south in Plaquemines Parish to provide greater protection from harmful frosts, and have continued to the present day. The Becnel family are the largest growers of Louisiana citrus. The fruit became much more common in the United States starting in the late 19th century. In 1878 during the

, Owari mikans were brought to the United States from the

in Kyūshū, Japan, by the spouse of the US Minister to Japan, General Van Valkenburgh, who renamed them satsumas. Between 1908 and 1911 about a million Owari mikan trees were imported throughout the lower Gulf Coast states. Owari is still commonly grown in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

. The towns of Satsuma, Alabama, Satsuma, Florida, Satsuma, Texas, and Satsuma, Louisiana were named after this fruit. By 1920 Jackson County in the Florida Panhandle had billed itself as the "Satsuma Capital of the World." However, the commercial industry was damaged by a cold snap in 1911, a hurricane in 1915, and a very cold period in the late 1930s.

Distribution

''Citrus unshiu'' is amongst others grown in Japan, Spain, central China, Korea, the US, South Africa, South America, New Zealand, and around the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...

Varieties

''Unshiu'' varieties cluster among the

family. There are, however, some hybrids.

Possible non-hybrids

* Kishu mikan *

Ōgonkan or are the common names for a small sized variety of Japanese citrus, whose rind is of a characteristic "golden" bright yellow color. The variety has been published as the species ''Citrus flaviculpus'' by Chōzaburō Tanaka in his 160-species ...

or Ki-mikan * Komikan

Hybrids

* Amanatsu (pumello hybrid) * Kinkoji unshiu (''C. obovoidea''(kinkoji) × ''C. unshiu'') * Kiyomi ** Dekopon is a kiyomi hybrid * Kobayashi mikan (''C. natsudaidai'' × ''C.unshiu'') * Shonan Gold * Iyokan

References

External links

The Satsuma Tangerine – University of Florida

{{Authority control unshiu Fruits originating in East Asia Japanese fruit Medicinal plants of Asia Chinese fruit