Subject: How were seedless oranges made?

From: [email-masked] (Neil Harrington)
Date: 14 Jul 1995 05:30:55 -0400

How were seedless oranges made?
TIA

-- 
 _  _     _ _        _   /|
| \| |___(_) |       \'o.O'
| .` / -_) | |       =(___)=
|_|\_\___|_|_|          U

---

From: [email-masked] (Bill Purves)
Date: 14 Jul 1995 21:42:37 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>How were seedless oranges made?

"Orange trees, which have been under cultivation for centuries, are
grown from seed except for one type, the navel orange.  This plant
has apparently arisen only once in history.  Early in the nineteenth
century, on a plantation on the Brazilian coast, one seed gave rise
to one tree that had aberrant flowers.  Parts of the flowers aborted,
and seedless fruits were formed.  Every navel orange in the world
comes from a navel orange tree derived asexually from another, which
came from another, and another, and so on back to that original
Brazilian tree.  Navel oranges must be propagated asexually."

					LIFE, 4/e, 1995

(bill)

William K. Purves
Department of Biology
Harvey Mudd College
Claremont, CA 91711
909.621.8021
[email-masked]