Jamaican tangelo
{{Short description|Citrus fruit and plant}}
{{Hybridbox
|image = Uniq Fruit from Jamaica.jpg
|display_parents = 0
|genus = Citrus
|species1 = reticulata
|link1 = Mandarin orange
|species2 = paradisi
|link2 = Grapefruit
}}
The Jamaican tangelo, also known by proprietary names ugli fruit (pronounced "ugly"), and uniq fruit (pronounced "unique"),Implied by {{cite web |title=Uniq Fruit lives up to its name |url=https://www.brookstropicals.com/our-specialties/uniq-fruit/uniq-fruit/ |publisher=Brooks Tropicals |access-date=30 January 2025 |language=en |url-status=live}} See also {{cite web |title=Uniq Fruit |url=https://www.brookstropicals.com/our-specialties/uniq-fruit/ |language=en |url-status=live}} is a citrus fruit that arose on the island of Jamaica through the natural hybridization of a tangerine or orange with a grapefruit (or pomelo), and is thus a tangelo.[https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Grapefruit%3A+a+fruit+with+a+bit+of+a+complex.-a0177984107 Grapefruit: a fruit with a bit of a complex] in Art Culinaire (Winter 2007) The original tree is believed to have been a hybrid formed from varieties of Seville orange, grapefruit and tangerine.{{cite web | url=http://www.ugli.com/about_us.html | title=About Us – UGLI | access-date=April 24, 2020 | archive-date=April 21, 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421020213/http://www.ugli.com/about_us.html | url-status=dead }}
As a hybrid species, it is usually represented as Citrus reticulata × paradisi.Bastyra, Judy, and Julia Canning. A Gourmet's Guide to Fruit. Los Angeles: HP Books, 1989. Pg. 52.
Discovery
This tangelo was a natural hybrid, having arisen spontaneously like the grapefruit, near Brown's Town, Jamaica. It was discovered growing wild in or about 1917, then passed through several generations of budwood grafting, selecting for fewer seeds. Since the 1930s the main producer has been the Sharp family of Trout Hall plantation in Trout Hall village Clarendon Parish, Jamaica. It was exported to Canada and England by 1934, and to the United States in 1942.{{cite book|title=Citrus: A History | author=Pierre Laszlo | publisher=University of Chicago Press | location=Chicago | year=2007 | page=198}} 'UGLI' is a registered trademark of Cabel Hall Citrus Limited, under which it markets the fruit,{{cite web | url=http://www.ugli.com/about_us.html | title=About Us – UGLI | access-date=February 13, 2012 | archive-date=April 21, 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421020213/http://www.ugli.com/about_us.html | url-status=dead }} the name being a variation of the word "ugly", which refers to the fruit's unsightly appearance, with rough, wrinkled, greenish-yellow rind, wrapped loosely around the orange pulpy citrus inside.
Description
The light-green surface blemishes turn orange when the fruit is at its peak ripeness. The Jamaican tangelo is usually slightly larger than a grapefruit (but this varies) and has fewer seeds. The flesh is very juicy and tends toward the sweet side of the tangerine rather than the bitter side of its grapefruit lineage, with a fragrant rind.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}
The taste is often described as sourer than an orange and less bitter than a grapefruit, however, and is more commonly guessed to be a lemon{{endash}}tangerine hybrid. The fruit is seasonal, from December to April. It is distributed in Europe and the United States between November and April,{{cite web | url=http://www.ugli.com/where_to_look.html | title=Where to look – UGLI | access-date=February 13, 2012 | archive-date=May 18, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190518074802/http://www.ugli.com/where_to_look.html | url-status=dead }} and is on occasion available from July to September.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}
Gallery
File:Ugli fruit sections.jpg|Jamaican tangelo, peeled and sectioned
File:Ugli.jpg|Roundish version
References
{{Commons category|Ugli}}
{{Wiktionary|ugli}}
{{Reflist}}
{{citrus}}
{{Taxonbar|from=Q1757759}}