The forbidden fruit (also ''shaddette'') is a variety of

citrus fruit ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. The genus ''Citrus'' is native to So ...

native to

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindian ...

and once thought to be the origin of the

grapefruit The grapefruit (''Citrus'' × ''paradisi'') is a subtropical citrus tree known for its relatively large, sour to semi-sweet, somewhat bitter fruit. The interior flesh is segmented and varies in color from pale yellow to dark pink. Grapefruit is ...

.Bowman, Kim Dean. 1990. Unexploited germplasm, natural mutations, and selected in vitro techniques for citrus cultivar improvement. Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida.

History

What is thought to have been the first description of the forbidden fruit appears in the 1750 work of

Griffith Hughes The Reverend Griffith Hughes (1707 – c.1758), FRS, was a Welsh naturalist, clergyman, and author. Hughes wrote ''The Natural History of Barbados,'' which included the first description of the grapefruit (also known as "The Forbidden Fruit"). ...

, ''The Natural History of Barbados''. He described the 'Forbidden-fruit-tree' as similar to the orange tree, with fruit larger and longer than an orange. He describes its fruit as having "somewhat the Taste of a Shaddock" but exceeding "in the Delicacy of its Taste, the Fruit of every Tree in this or any of our neighboring Islands" in flavor. Hughes included an illustration of the tree, but his lack of botanical knowledge places the accuracy of his descriptions in doubt. The fruit was not limited to

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

: in 1756 its presence was reported in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, describing it as "excell ngin sweetness". Given the history in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

of attempts to propage the shaddock by seed planting, an approach that has generally proved difficult in reproducing pure pomelo, it is thought that the forbidden fruit arose from seed planting of a natural hybrid of the shaddock (

pomelo The pomelo ( ), ''Citrus maxima'', is the largest citrus fruit from the family Rutaceae and the principal ancestor of the grapefruit. It is a natural, non-hybrid, citrus fruit, native to Southeast Asia. Similar in taste to a sweet grapefr ...

) and

sweet orange An orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae The Rutaceae is a family, commonly known as the rue

, species both known to have been present in Barbados by 1687. Twentieth-century naturalists considered it either to be a variety of pomelo or of the

, similarly an orange/shaddock cross, but it was not well characterized, and was presumed extinct. In the 1990s a survey of residents of Saint Lucia revealed two plants on the island being referred to as the ''forbidden fruit'', one being a variety of the shaddock (pomelo), while the other matching more closely the historical descriptions of the forbidden fruit. This rediscovered hybrid forbidden fruit has a high degree of

monoembryony Monoembryony is the emergence of one and only one seedling from a seed. A seed giving two or more seedlings is polyembryonic. Some of the nuclear cells surrounding the embryo sac In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to an ...

which may make it an important genetic resource for the

sweet orange An orange is a fruit of various citrus species in the family Rutaceae The Rutaceae is a family, commonly known as the rue

, grapefruit, and

rootstock A rootstock is part of a plant, often an underground part, from which new above-ground growth can be produced. It could also be described as a stem with a well developed root system, to which a bud from another plant is grafted. It can refer to a ...

breeding programs.

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Pictures

References

Tropical fruit Citrus {{fruit-stub