Abstract

In popular parlance the word orange designates both the tight jacket. or sweet oranges and the loose jacket or mandarines. The application of the name orange to both the sweet oranges and the loose jackets is very misleading and has been responsible for a lot of confusion with the fruit- nursery and growing industries. There is, however, some doubt whether our loose jacket orange is really a mandarine, as some authorities have put it to be identical with the famous Ponkan orange of China-Citrus poonensis, Tanaka, while the mandarine is botanically known as Citrus tangering, Tanaka or Citrus nobilis var. deliciosa, Swingle. There is no such doubt, however, about the nomenclature of sweet oranges (Citrus sinensis, Osbeck) under which fall our Sathgudi, Batavian and Manilla oranges. For better precision and standardised nomenclature, it would be well if our sweet oranges only are designated under the orange group and the loose jackets are designated by a different name such as Santras as in Western and Central India, Coorg loose jackets or Kamalas.

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