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Yuzu ichandrin (papeda hybrid)
Citrus junos Sieb. ex Tanaka
Citrus ichangensis X C. reticulata var. austere
CRC 1216
PI 45945
VI 619
Photos by Ottillia J. Bier (Left) and Toni Siebert (Center), CVC, David Karp (Right), 12/13/2007, Lindcove, Ca. Photo rights.
Photos by David Karp (left), CVC, 11/14/2002, (center), CVC, 11/14/2002, (right), CVC, 11/28/2001. Photo rights.
Photos by David Karp (left), Riverside, Ca, 11/14/2002, (center), CVC, 11/15/2002, (right), 12/9/2004, Arvin, Ca. Photo rights.
Source: Received as seed that was collected by Frank N. Meyer, 2/25/1918.
Parentage/origins: Yuzu is thought to be a hybrid between Ichang papeda and Satsuma mandarin. This accession is from Hubei Province, China, along the Yangtze River, where it was found in a field on a slope at an elevation of about 4,000 feet.
Rootstocks of accession: Carrizo citrange, C-35 citrange
Season of ripeness at Riverside: Yuzu is used for cooking primarily when it is still green which occurs during September to October.
Notes and observations:
11/24/1917, F.N. Meyer: "A very spiny wild tree, Ht. 18 ft.; foliage dense, but individual leaves small; winged petioles quite minute; fruits fairly juicy; the size and shape of a tangerine; rind of bright yellow color; and corrugated, but not excessively so; odor very pleasing. Seeds large but not very numerous. In regions where this wild Ichang lemon occurs, one also finds coir palms, loquats, bamboos, large-leaved evergreen privets and Cunninghamia lanceolata. Temperatures probably never go below 10ºF . The local name of this wild lemon was given as Chu gan tze meaning 'Maggot orange' since maggots are said to be attracted by the very sour juice. No other cultivated citrus fruit occurred nearby though a few hundred feet lower down, several large pummelo trees were seen. The natives have little use for the fruit; they keep a few in the room to perfume the air and occasionally they use the dried rind in a medicinal tea. In breeding experiments it may be of value since it seems to be the hardiest of all the real species of citrus.
11/13/1989, EMN: According to Shu Yuan Wan (4/84 visitor to CRC), Chu means bad or bitter smell and gantze means orange. Tree & fruit here seem to fit above and C.I. descriptions fairly well (came to us as seed). More seeds here than "not very numerous".
Description from The Citrus Industry Vol. 1 (1967):
"The Yuzu is a medium-sized spiny tree; leaves lanceolate-acuminate, with rounded bases but with pointed, usually acuminate tips, slightly crenulate-margined toward the tips, leaf blades 5-7 X 2.5 X 3.5 cm; winged petioles obovate, 18-30 X 6-15 mm, with entire or very faintly crenulate margins; fruits depressed-globose, usually with 10 locules, 5-7 cm diam., 4.5-5.5 cm high, with a rough, bumpy peel, greenish in color when ripe; pulp very acid, and somewhat bitterish; seeds plump, about 12-14 X 7-8 X 6-7 mm.
This well-known citrus fruit tree of China and Japan is doubtless another ichandarin resulting from an accidental cross-pollination of some cultivated variety of the mandarin orange by the Ichang papeda, probably accomplished by some insect. The Yuzu is unlike either parent species in many important taxonomic characters; however, there has been little opportunity to learn its characters or experiment with it since one parent, C. ichangensis, is a wild species (apparently never cultivated in China) that was not discovered until 1913. The hybrid nature of the Yuzu was not known even in the Orient, where C. ichangensis is a botanical curiosity. As has been describe above, hybrids that show astonishing similarity to the Yuzu have now been produced in this country between the Ichang papeda and the satsuma orange (a form of C. reticulata).
The Yuzu is sparingly cultivated in north-central China, in Kiangsu, Chekiang, Hupeh, and Kansu provinces, and in the plateau regions of southwestern China and as far south as Yunnan Province. It is more commonly grown in Japan, both for its acid fruits, which are used as a substitute for lemons or limes, and as a rootstock for the satsuma and other cultivated varieties of citrus fruits.
Meyer, in October, 1914, found this hardy citrus fruit tree in northwestern China, in the latitude of Atlanta, Georgia, at Hsi-Chi village, near Siku (Lat. 33° 44' N., Long. 104° 30' E.), in the southern part of Kansu Province. It was growing at an altitude of 610 to 1,372 meters (2,000 to 4,500 ft.) along with walnuts, persimmons, pomegranates, and the Trachycarpus palm. Meyer (1918) described the fruit as follows: "The fruits were loose-skinned, round flattened, the size of mandarin oranges, color of rind light yellow; rind full of oil glands, smelling like a fine lemon; segments separating easily; fairly juicy and of an agreeable sharp sour taste; contains plenty of large seeds." Meyer's photograph, taken at His-Chi, Kansu Province, was published by Tanaka (1922, pl. facing p. 243).
Two strains of this hybrid grown in north-central China were described by Hu (1934, pp. 47-48). They are: (1) hsiang ch'êng (aromatic ch'êng), a name current in Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces; and (2) Lo han ch'êng (Buddhist disciple Ch'êng), a name used in T'ang-ch'i, Chekiang Province. Hu (1930) has shown the first in his figures 34 and 35 and the second in figures 36 and 37.
Tanaka has directed attention (1933b) to certain Chinese records which seem to prove that this plant was known and cultivated in ancient China under the name yu. This name is still used for it in Japan but not in China, where the name is now applied to the pummelo (C. grandis), a very different species having much larger fruits with agreeably flavored sweet pulp. The Yuzu is now called ch'êng tzu in China and was so called as early as 1108 A.D. by Tang Shên-wei in his great illustrated herbal, the Chêng lei pên ts'ao, published in that year.
In the "Spring and Summer Annals" of Lü Pu-wei, who died in 237 B.C., the yu of that epoch was described as follows (as translated by Michael J. Hagerty): "Some are sweet and some are sour. The sour are called hu kan or Barbarian sweet. At present the common people sometimes speak of the ch'êng as yu but this is wrong." This last sentence proves, as noted by Hagerty, that there were already in the third century B.C. two different fruits called yu. It seems probable that the Japanese name yuzu, which corresponds to yu tzu in the Chinese spoken language, has been kept with its ancient meaning in Japan, but that the meaning has for many centuries been lost in China.
The Yuzu was named Citrus junos (as a good species) by Tanaka, but, as has been shown above, it is very probably a hybrid of the Ichang papeda and some Chinese cultivated variety of the mandarin orange and therefore cannot be recognized as a good botanical species.
The Yuzu is worthy of trial as an acid fruit for the home garden in subtropical or warm-temperate climates that are too cold to permit the growth of other acid citrus fruits. The Yuzu was formerly used widely in Japan as a rootstock for the satsuma orange, but now the trifoliate orange is almost exclusively used in nurseries which propagate the satsuma on a large scale, doubtless partly because seeds of the Yuzu are only to be obtained in moderate quantity from fruits that have a market value, whereas trifoliate orange seeds can be had in large quantity from fruits that are of no value.
Nagai and Takahashi (1928, pp. 2018-22, and 1925 [in Japanese]) found that of the five following rootstocks—Yuzu, sweet orange, sour orange, trifoliate orange, and Japanese summer orange (Natsudaidai)—the Yuzu gave the best results when approach-grafted in order to rejuvenate Thomson navel trees on trifoliate orange rootstocks. The sweet orange did nearly as well, but it is subject to foot rot, a disease that does not attack the Yuzu.
Availability: Commercially available in California through the Citrus Clonal Protection Program.
USDA Germplasm Resources Information Network page for Yuzu
CVC fruit quality data for Yuzu
Bibliography:
"Citrus junos Sieb. ex Tanaka (Yuzu) fruit", Fruits: growth, nutrition, and quality, Sawamura, M., 2005, pgs. 1-24.
"Citrus rootstocks from the Papeda group", Citrograph, Bitters, W.P., Cole, D. A., McCarty, C.D., 58(12), pgs. 419, 420, 438, 439; 1973.
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