''Citrus hindsii'', the

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

kumquat, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

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

; a type of citrus fruit in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

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

'', family

Rutaceae The Rutaceae () is a family (biology), family, commonly known as the rueRUTACEAE
in Bo ...

. This specific name is first published in World Checklist of Seed Plants 3(1): 15 (1999). Recent phylogenetic analysis suggested that ''C. hindsii'' is a single 'true' species. ''Citrus hindsii'' produces small, round, pea-sized, bitter and acidic fruit with very little pulp and large seeds. The fruits are bright orange in color when ripe. In warmer regions, it is primarily grown as an

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or ''garden plants'' are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars th ...

as well as houseplant and

bonsai Bonsai (; , ) is the Japanese art of Horticulture, growing and shaping miniature trees in containers, with a long documented history of influences and native Japanese development over a thousand years, and with unique aesthetics, cultural hist ...

. Though it is also found in southern China growing in the wild. Not only is it the most primitive of the kumquats, but with kumquats being the most primitive citrus, Swingle described it as the closest to the ancestral species from which all citrus evolved. While the wild Hong Kong kumquat is

tetraploid Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than two paired sets of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two complete sets of chromosomes, one fro ...

, there is a commercial

diploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Here ''sets of chromosomes'' refers to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, ...

variety, the ''Golden Bean kumquat'', with slightly larger fruit.

Synonyms

* ''Fortunella hindsii'' (Champ. ex Benth.) Swingle,

1915 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January *January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction". *January 1 * ...

. * ''Sclerostylis hindsii'' Champ. ex Benth. * ''Atalantia hindsii'' (Champ. ex Benth.) Oliv.

References

External links

* hindsii Plants used in bonsai Taxa named by George Bentham Plants described in 1851 {{Citrus-stub