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How did the grapefruit, a hybrid fruit, get its name?

Question #150103. Asked by psnz.
Last updated Nov 08 2023.
Originally posted Nov 08 2023 8:55 PM.

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BigTriviaDawg star
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BigTriviaDawg star
7 year member
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Answer has 0 votes.
There are a couple of theories on where the name comes from. One suggests that it tastes similar to a grape variety (which seems hard to believe) and the second suggests that the way the fruit grows on a tree looks like a cluster of grapes.
In 1814, naturalist John Lunan published the term grapefruit to describe a similar Jamaican citrus plant. Lunan reported that the name was due to its similarity in taste to the grape (Vitis vinifera). An alternative explanation offered by Tussac (1824) is that this name may allude to clusters of the fruit on the tree, which often appear similar to bunches of grapes.

Grapefruit originated as a natural hybrid. One ancestor of the grapefruit was the Jamaican sweet orange (Citrus sinensis), itself an ancient hybrid of Asian origin; the other was the Indonesian pomelo (C. maxima). Both C. sinensis and C. maxima were present in the West Indies by 1692. One story of the fruit's origin is that a certain "Captain Shaddock" brought pomelo seeds to Jamaica and bred the first fruit, which were then called shaddocks. This apparently referred to a captain who traded in the West Indies in the 17th century. The grapefruit then probably originated as a naturally occurring hybrid between the two plants some time after they had been introduced there.



link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapefruit

Response last updated by BigTriviaDawg on Nov 08 2023.
Nov 08 2023, 8:59 PM
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