It’s a common refrain: some horticulturist or botanist sees a wonderful potential in some plant and brings it across the ocean. An effort is made to establish said plant, so that their descendants could carry out a far greater effort to de-establish it.
I can begin so many essays this way. The subject today is trifoliate orange (Citrus trifoliata or Poncirus trifoliata), also known as bitter orange, hardy orange, or (in one cultivar) Flying Dragon.
The bitter orange is a shrub which can grow to nearly 30 feet tall. What gets your attention at first sight are the long (1-2”) rigid thorns arming the twisting green stems.
While the thorns are the main feature to my eyes, it gets its name from the fruit. It is flowering now (May), and in a couple of months small (around 2 ½ inches) green fruits will appear. These ripen to orange and are both very acidic and bitter (the latter from a chemical called poncirin). I’ve read that, with proper preparation, they can be turned into a marmalade or a bittersweet condiment. To me, that’s trying to make lemonade when given lemons.
It was brought over in the mid-nineteenth century to make livestock hedges. And they certainly work for that purpose, with their 2-inch thorns! The problem, as usual, is that the possible ramifications were not thought through – namely that this hardy plant will find its way to unwelcome places. Trifoliate orange has established itself in at least 17 states.
I’ve encountered it on several properties in Georgia Piedmont, but nowhere as extensively as a tract in Jackson County which, prior to mulching, was a solid thicket of bitter orange.
Why is this pest top of mind today? I was visiting my neighbor across the creek and came across several scattered hardy oranges. I already have callery pears, another noxious plant I have special antipathy towards, advancing on me. But then, our landscape has an overabundance of foreign species that have made themselves at home here. The more one learns, the more one finds.
Towards the Moon or To the Sun 