Orange Flavored Water

Orange or Citrus sinensis is one of the most widely favored of the world's fruits, the orange, sweet orange, or round orange, was for many years known as Citrus aurantium var. sinensis L. and considered to be a form of the sour orange (q.v.). It is still not universally agreed to be a distinct species, C. sinensis Osbeck, but it is usually treated as though it were. One of its first recorded regional names was the Persian narang, from which were derived the Spanish name, naranja, and the Portuguese, laranja. In some Caribbean and Latin American areas, the fruit is called naranja de China, China dulce, or simply China (pronounced cheena).

Spaniards undoubtedly introduced the sweet orange into South America and Mexico in the mid-1500's, and probably the French took it to Louisiana. It was from New Orleans that seeds were obtained and distributed in Florida about 1872 and many orange groves were established by grafting the sweet orange onto sour orange rootstocks. Arizona received the orange tree with the founding of missions between 1707 and 1710. The orange was brought to San Diego, California, by those who built the first mission there in 1769. An orchard was planted at the San Gabriel Mission around 1804. A commercial orchard was established in 1841 on a site that is now a part of Los Angeles. In 1781, a surgeon and naturalist on the ship, Discovery, collected orange seeds in South Africa, grew seedlings on board and presented them to tribal chiefs in the Hawaiian Islands on arrival in 1792. In time, the orange became commonly grown throughout Hawaii, but was virtually abandoned after the advent of the Mediterranean fruit fly and the fruit is now imported from the United States mainland.