A mandarin by any other name Page 1 a Mandarin Publication Number 31-111 By Any Other Name (published Dec.2004) Author: Cindy Fake, Horticulture and Small Farms Advisor, Placer and Nevada Counties

A mandarin by any other name technically correct. Interestingly, 2. Mediterranean mandarins, would taste as sweet, but what is DNA technology has revealed called “Willowleaf” mandarin it? In Japanese, mandarin is that the common or sweet orange because of its small narrow mikan; in India; it is the suntara. is probably a hybrid of a leaves In French and German, it is pummelo, a large, thick-skinned mandarine; in Italian, mandarino, citrus, and a mandarin. So, even 3. King mandarins, a small Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, your orange is part mandarin! group of mandarins of Indo- and Bulgarian all use mandarina; China, important primarily as but to many Americans, mandarin Where did tangerine come from? parents of commercial is an unfamiliar term. Mandarins were first imported varieties such as Kinnow and from China into the Encore There is a lot of confusion about Mediterranean region through the mandarins and tangerines. Some port of Tangiers, hence the name 4. Common people say that if the skin is tangerine. However, to quote one mandarins, a reddish-orange and it has seeds, citrus expert, Lance Walheim, diverse group it is a tangerine, and that only “The name tangerine has no that includes Satsumas are mandarins. Others botanical standing; rather it numerous think all of them are tangerines. appears to have developed as a hybrids and many of what Part of the confusion is because marketing term for bright colored some would call tangerines; mandarins make up the largest (reddish-orange) varieties of the Clementines, Dancy, and most varied group of citrus. common mandarin, such as Kinnow, and Fairchild Dancy”. THE MANDARIN Satsuma and common mandarins Use of the term tangerine is not are the two commercially According to most consistent, as some pale yellow- important groups. While some of the world’s citrus orange fruit are also called varieties fit easily into these four experts, all of the tangerines. Outside the US, the categories, one of the properties loose skinned, cold- term is rarely used. To put it of mandarins (and other citrus) is hardy citrus are succinctly, a mandarin is a that they mutate spontaneously. mandarins, mandarin and so is a tangerine. Many of the wide range of botanically known Satsuma and Clementine as Citrus reticulata. Properly MANDARIN TYPES varieties are the result of such speaking, they are not mandarin mutations. oranges, but simply mandarins. Most horticulturalists divide However, since many Americans’ mandarins into four groups: HISTORY OF THE MANDARIN only acquaintance with mandarins is from a can labeled 1. Satsuma mandarins Mandarins probably originated in “mandarin oranges”, it may be primarily developed in Japan. China and were taken to India by helpful to call them mandarin These are the most cold traders. Later they spread to oranges, even if it is not hardy mandarins. Japan, where Satsuma

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