A ternary plot of citrus geneology

https://www.jlauf.com/writing/citrus/

by jlauf • 5 months ago

170 36 5 months ago

jihadjihad• 5 months ago

A Persian lime is a cross between a Key lime and a lemon? I never would have guessed that, that's really interesting.

Yeah makes sense though. And for those reading Persian lime is the regular lime found in US grocery stores. Kaffir lime (one of the cornerstone species not included on the ternary axes) is the lime used in Thai food

ok_dad• 5 months ago

This is cool! I do wish I could search for a specific citrus by name.

jlauf3• 5 months ago

Thanks! I'll add it when I get a chance.

smlacy• 5 months ago

Seems to be missing the Etrog? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_taxonomy#Citrons

Also, the "click to show search results" is cool but fails for "Arizona Citron" in obvious ways.

madcaptenor• 5 months ago

Apparently it's also known as the Greek citron, but I don't see it under that name either.

jlauf3• 5 months ago

There are lots of citruses missing; the ones in the chart are only the ones I could find reliable values for (from the sources at the bottom). I'll add more if I can find other reliable sources. For what it's worth, I think the etrog is basically a pure citron variety.

Yeah, that's definitely an issue. If I get a chance, I'll curate images to add!

vixen99• 5 months ago

Fascinating. Look forward to your update.

pazimzadeh• 5 months ago

I couldn't find the Seville orange, or what Iranians call Narang

Nevermind, they have the "Sevillan Sour Orange" and a few other sour oranges

s0rce3• 5 months ago

I think the etrog is not a hybrid so it would overlap with the citron

Fordec• 5 months ago

Also appears to be missing Yuzu and Sudachi

jsmith99• 5 months ago

I assume the esrog is the primeval citron but I've noticed that Jewish tradition (which rejects the use of hybrid citrons) allows some surprisingly different citrons in practice, popularly associated with Israel, Morocco, Yemen, Corfu etc. These differ considerably in eg rind thickness.

davidw• 5 months ago

Now I wish I could try all of these.

dheera• 5 months ago

Just walk around San Jose residential neighborhoods, all the combinations are literally dropping everywhere.

cwmoore• 5 months ago

There was a great pomelo tree around the corner from me a few years back.

s0rce3• 5 months ago

There is an annual citrus festival in Riverside, CA where many hybrids are developed.

wgrover• 5 months ago

Yes! And every day the California Citrus State Historic Park is open for tours and tasting of various citrus varieties:

https://www.californiacitruspark.com

hammock• 5 months ago

Missing kumquats (and calamondins and mandarinquats)

s0rce3• 5 months ago

they discuss that, they were not hybridized to the same extent. They do discuss the key lime ancestry as orthogonal, it would be cool to use a tetrahedron instead to show that.

fritzo• 5 months ago

Inheritance is astonishingly more complex than trees, e.g.

Wong et al. (2024) "A general and efficient representation of ancestral recombination graphs" https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyae100

jlauf3• 5 months ago

Interesting, going to read more!

lameda• 5 months ago

This is very cool, thank you for building it! I remember reading about the mess of citrus genealogy in John McPhee's Oranges (wonderful book).

CamelCaseCondo• 5 months ago

During lockdown I started growing clementine from seed. One of the interesting details of this genus is polyembryonism: multiple seedlings emerging from one seed. Apparently, one of the seedlings will be a clone of the motherplant and the rest will be the product of pollination/genetic reshuffling. My clementine seeds all had 2 seedlings per seed but other attempts (with lemon I think) yielded 3 or more).

During my reading I came across a lot of contradictory info about the origin of the clementine: some papers say it’s an unknown hybrid, other clearly state it’s a mutation instead of a hybrid. So it’s interesting to read the hybrid parentage in this triangle, stated with confidence.

seszett• 5 months ago

Polyembryony is the reverse of what you think: one embryo is a result of pollination and all the others are clones. The sexual reproduction embryo is often less vigorous and sometimes doesn't develop at all. It makes it easy to reproduce "true" plants, but also makes it difficult to produce hybrids for some species.

riffraff• 5 months ago

Chinotto (apparently called mirtle leaves bitter orange in English?) also has some confused origin (perhaps it's a mutation of some other bitter orange, but it's unclear), and afaict it's not in this chart, or I can't find it.

Citrus fruits are fun.

contubernio• 5 months ago

Couldn't find blood oranges (sanguina in Spanish). Curious to know where they fit.

cenamus• 5 months ago

It belongs to the sweet oranges, so probably in the big cluster there somewhere

interroboink• 5 months ago

I recently learned about the fact that Sichuan peppercorns are actually related to citrus, so was looking for where the connection is... As it turns out[1], there is a "citrus family" (Rutaceae[2]) and a citrus genus (Citrus[3], in that family). The Sichuan plant is a member of the family, but not the genus (that would be Zanthoxylum[4]). Confusing!

  [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47248319
  [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutaceae
  [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus
  [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanthoxylum

Also, this is a pretty good page on citrus (both family and genus): https://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/citrus.html

zeristor3• 5 months ago

Thanks lovely piece of work.

I couldn't find Yuzu, I guess I could have looked at the source JSON file, worked out the co-ordinates that find it on the chart, if its there.

Yuzu seems to be having a bit of a moment, like pistachio nuts.

poizan422• 5 months ago

According to wikipedia they are cultivated from a hybrid of mandarin orange and Ichang papeda, the latter being from another wild lineage than the three shown.

zeristor3• 5 months ago

Indeed, thanks.

This takes the citrus gram into 3D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papeda_(citrus)

antasvara• 5 months ago

From what I can tell, the papeda is included as a sort of addendum in the bottom right corner of the chart.

drmpeg• 5 months ago

Meyer lemons from my backyard.

https://www.w6rz.net/lemons.png

wrboyce• 5 months ago

Interesting read, and nicely follows last week’s Lunchbox Envy where “Oranges” was the subject. A great podcast if you like food and fun facts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0n1sn05

A ternary plot of citrus geneology

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