Balotin Lemon

Citrus Balotina - Balotin Lemon

Nicknamed "Adam's apple" since the 17th century, the Balotin Lemon owes its legendary name to the curious indentation that marks its top, evoking the imprint of a bite.

Ferrari, in his famous work Hesperides (1646), was the first to immortalize this singular fruit under the Latin name pomum Adami.

Two centuries later, Poiteau confirmed this identification and re-established its true botanical name, preserved in the great Parisian orangeries. This plate finely illustrates one of the most poetic and little-known citrus fruits of European horticultural heritage.

The Balotin is a vigorous lemon tree that shares with the citron the fleshy thickness of its rind and the refreshing quality of its tangy juice.

Its majestic habit, its stiff branches punctuated with yellowish thorns, and its oval, yellowish-green leaves give it an elegant silhouette.

Its large flowers, tinged with red on the outside, bloom in spectacular clusters at the top of the branches.

The fruit, of good size, is distinguished by its rounded shape, slightly flattened on the stem side, and its large, irregular terminal nipple, hollowed out by a characteristic furrow.

Its thick, pebbled, and deep yellow skin contains twelve locules filled with yellowish vesicular pulp, rich in a tangy juice once prized for making lemonades.

Cultivated in the most beautiful orangeries of France, including the King's Garden in Paris and Versailles, it flowers in June and ripens over eighteen months, testifying to the patience and know-how of 19th-century gardeners.

This plate is taken from Poiteau and Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, an encyclopedic work dedicated to fruits cultivated in France, a major reference in 19th-century naturalistic illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates from the golden age of illustrated botany.