Oranges played a significant and symbolic part in the work of the painters of the Italian Renaissance, and, in earlier centuries, at least two invasions of Italy were touched off by gifts of oranges temptingly sent to warlords in the north. Oranges were the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. Botanically, they are spectacularly complicated. They can be completely unripe when they are a brilliant orange and deliciously ripe when they are as green as emeralds. An orange grown on one side of a tree is better than an orange grown on the other side.
Citrus is so genetically perverse that oranges can grow from lime seeds.
Most California lemons grow on orange roots. Most Florida oranges grow on lemon roots. Mr. McPhee's astonishing book has an almost narrative progression, is immensely readable, and is frequently amusing. Louis XIV hung tapestries of oranges in the halls of Versailles, because oranges and orange trees were the symbols of his nature and his reign. Cook, Harper's Fascinating.