Re: bananas/now navel oranges

yes, cathy, the washington navel is the original navel brought to california from brazil in the 1870s. apparently there were two of them. all navel oranges sold in this country are descended from those two trees. don't know why they are named "washington". the washington is truly seedless, but there are other navels--cultivated sports from the original washingtons--that occasionally have seeds and have other differing characteristics, usually slightly smaller fruit, often thinner skins, and maybe more productive or earlier producers. the latter would be the major reason for selecting them, i suppose. names of the other navels i am familiar with [or have heard about] are trovita, skaggs bonanza, robertson, and summernavel. all are sports of the washington. the trovita, skaggs bonanza, and summernavel all have occasional seeds.

as for whether they will come true from seed, the odds are pretty high against that. most citrus have such convoluted ancestry that they don't come true to anything. the only citrus i know of, in fact, that is sometime commercially grown from seed is the mexican [aka key] lime. apparently, they are a genuine article.


At 11:54 AM 1/25/03 -0600, you wrote:
What is the washington naval orange? Is it just the official name of the ubiquitous naval orange? I have occasionally noticed seeds in them...assume that they either don't germinate or do not come true to seed?
Cathy

On Saturday, January 25, 2003, at 06:44 AM, Island Jim wrote:
there was an interesting article in the new york time last week about the source and survival of the washington navel orange. since it truly can't be hybridized, i would think it would be closer to being doomed that the banana would be.
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