Tableau Vivante

“Agriculture IS cool.”

Me, at the Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree in Riverside, CA, 2008-03-17

Looking around Riverside, it’s hard to imagine that only a few decades ago, the valley was awash in citrus groves and vineyards. In fact, Riverside was the epicenter of the nation’s orange industry at one time. You can still see the ragged remnants of that history here and there – patches of land with skeletal grape vine stumps or dead trees amidst weeds and dust stuck in-between technology centers and warehouses. But there is one place, in the middle of Riverside’s residential hubbub, where that history is well cared for and guarded by an imposing iron fence.

But maybe we back up a bit and talk about the navel orange – that seedless, sweet wonder of a fruit. It’s a mutant citrus – discovered in a monastery orchard in Brazil around 1820. The fruit inside is actually two fruits – the main seedless wedges that we peel apart and enjoy and the conjoined twin stub that forms the navel. That mutation is what made this orange seedless. And no seeds meant the only way to cultivate the trees were through cuttings grafted to other citrus stock. Which leads me to an interesting little point of fact (And yes, I checked it. Be impressed.) - all navel oranges trees in the US, being grafts from those original mutated trees, are genetically identical to those century old trees. No selective breeding is possible because, you know, sterility. Some would even say that the navel orange we eat today is actually from that ancient mother tree. We just took pieces from pieces and grafted our way into an industry.

Those original trees pretty much stayed in that Brazilian monastery orchard until a gift of trees (I’ve heard everything from 20 to 200. I think the former is more likely.) was presented to our national Department of Agriculture in 1873. William Saunders, a horticulturalist with the DofA gave two of those trees to a friend of his, a Mrs. Eliza Tibbets of Riverside, California, thinking perhaps that the trees might do very well there.

Right around here this history starts to get really fuzzy. Most historical info credits Eliza with the business sense that pushed her to sell cuttings from the trees for $5 a pop (a pretty giant sum in the late 1800s). Other references say that her husband, Luther, was the mastermind of the cutting empire, but that he sold them for a measly sum and died a penniless man. Which ever story is true, the outcome for California was huge.

They called it California’s second gold rush and Riverside, along with Mrs. Tibbets’ trees, became the source of all things orange in the state. By 1882, there were more than half a million citrus trees in California, almost half of which were in Riverside. The development of refrigerated railroad cars and a canal irrigation system established Riverside as the wealthiest city per capita by 1895.

At first the fruit was called the Riverside Navel, but today even the local Riverside residents call it the more generic (and allegedly more patriotic) Washington Navel. Riverside! Represent! Geesh.

And guess what? The trees are still alive and producing in Riverside. The original trees. Mrs. Tibbets’ from Brazil via Washington, D.C. No joke, though no matter how you slice it, it’s still a mouthful – The Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree. I think I might hold a new name contest. Winner gets a fruit from the tree. Any takers?

The trees are located on a small, oddly-shaped lot at the busy intersection of Magnolia and Arlington. The lot has a name – the Parent Navel Orange Historical Park – and is home to two orange trees and a Marsh Grapefruit tree, which is apparently the mother tree of…oh you get the idea.

You would never know that this tree was well over a century old. It had abundant healthy new growth on it, was covered in both fruit and blossoms, and gave off one of the most pleasant smells I’ve ever experienced. But was the fruit still sweet? Rumors said yes. But we wanted to try it ourselves. Sadly, the gate was locked up tight. Fruit access would not be easy.

Awfully close. Just not close enough.

And yet we managed it anyway, without breaking any laws or bones. The answer? Yes. Still sweet. Still seedless. The history of how our food came to be tends to get lost in the trail of meals we leave behind. Agricultural history in particular is getting harder to come by. But there are a few spots where major benchmarks are available see, touch, taste, and smell. This is one of them. Worth the visit, in my opinion.