Variegated Purple Orange

Citrus aurantium var. violacea - Violet Bitter Orange

In June, the violet bitter orange tree offers an astonishing spectacle: red and green shoots emerge side by side, bearing red flowers on the former, white flowers on the latter.

This botanical singularity, already noted in Paris in 1810, baffled naturalists of the time. Parisian gardeners called it "hermaphrodite," an inaccurate term since all orange trees are, but one that reflects their fascination with this variety exhibiting such contrasting manifestations.

This bitter orange tree displays the characteristic habit of its family, but its foliage is distinguished by a more intense green. All its petioles are winged.

In spring, the shrub is adorned with a bouquet where shoots and flowers of both colors intermingle, without it being possible to predict their arrangement.

• The red flowers give rise to small violet fruits, slightly rough and longitudinally striped, crowned with a discreet nipple. This violet hue is not original: the skin's base sometimes remains greenish, and the fruit yellows upon ripening.
• The white flowers, on the other hand, produce very rough yellow fruits, with thick skin, divided into eight locules containing a small amount of acidic water. Poiteau never observed seeds in them.

Of unknown origin, this bitter orange tree was introduced from Paris to Liguria and Nice at the beginning of the 19th century, where it thrived in milder climates.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, 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 illustrated botany.