Crown-fronted Smooth Snake

Aurantium coronatum - Crowned Bitter Orange

The Crowned Bitter Orange owes its name to the word bigarre, from the Latin bis varius, which refers to both the variety of shape and color.

This spectacular fruit, adorned with a prominent circle at its apex, was long cultivated in French orangeries less for its flesh than for the splendor and incomparable fragrance of its flowers, the largest and most fragrant among citrus fruits. In the 19th century, it also served as a preferred rootstock, more resistant than the lemon tree, ensuring healthy and lasting harvests.

The Crowned Bitter Orange tree is distinguished by its majestic habit, vibrant green foliage, and abundant flowering.

Its spherical fruits, 54 to 80 millimeters in diameter, are marked by a characteristic raised circle. Inside, ten segments contain vesicles with a bittersweet juice. Specimens cultivated in Parisian orangeries rarely produced seeds, unlike the Provençal bitter oranges sought after for sowing.

Their dried peel had numerous uses: in medicine, offices, and cooking. As for the juice, it was a good substitute for lemon in many culinary preparations.

This plate is taken from the Traité des Arbres Fruitiers by Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin, a fruit encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalist illustration.

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

As an anecdote, this plate was used by Salvador Dali for his lithograph series 'Flordali, les Fruits' in 1969.