Murcott (fruit)
{{Short description|Citrus fruit and plant}}
{{Infobox cultivar
| name = Murcott
| image = Citrus x nobilis 'W. Murcott' - Tangor.jpg
| image_caption = Citrus x nobilis 'W. Murcott', in the Linnean House of the Missouri Botanical Garden
| hybrid = Parents unknown; likely a tangor{{Cite web | url=http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ch078 | title=Murcott (Honey Tangerine)| date=2018-05-09}}
| cultivar = Murcott
| origin = Florida
|marketing_names= 'Honey tangerine'
}}
The Murcott (marketed as Honey Tangerine) is a tangor, or mandarin–sweet orange hybrid.{{Cite journal|title=A genealogy of the citrus family |journal=Nature Biotechnology |date=2014-01-01 |volume=32 |issue=7 |doi=10.1038/nbt.2954 |first1=Riccardo |last1=Velasco |first2=Concetta |last2=Licciardello |pages=640–642 |pmid=25004231 |doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal|title=Sequencing of diverse mandarin, pummelo and orange genomes reveals complex history of admixture during citrus domestication |journal=Nature Biotechnology |date=2014-07-01 |issn=1087-0156 |pmc=4113729 |pmid=24908277 |pages=656–662 |volume=32 |issue=7 |doi=10.1038/nbt.2906 |first1=G. Albert |last1=Wu |first2=Simon |last2=Prochnik |first3=Jerry |last3=Jenkins |first4=Jerome |last4=Salse |first5=Uffe |last5=Hellsten |first6=Florent |last6=Murat |first7=Xavier |last7=Perrier |first8=Manuel |last8=Ruiz |first9=Simone |last9=Scalabrin |quote=[T]he W. Murcott mandarin is believed to be a chance zygotic seedling of Murcott tangor, itself a presumed F1 hybrid of sweet orange and an unknown mandarin.}}
The Murcott arose out of citrus pioneer Walter Tennyson Swingle's attempts to produce novel citrus hybrids. Its seed parent has been identified as the King tangelo; the pollen parent remains to be identified.{{cite journal |last1=Shimizu |first1=Tokurou |last2=Kitajima |first2=Akira |last3=Nonaka |first3=Keisuke |last4=Yoshioka |first4=Terutaka |last5=Ohta |first5=Satoshi |last6=Goto |first6=Shingo |last7=Toyoda |first7=Atsushi |last8=Fujiyama |first8=Asao |last9=Mochizuki |first9=Takako |last10=Nagasaki |first10=Hideki |last11=Kaminuma |first11=Eli |last12=Nakamura |first12=Yasukazu |title=Hybrid Origins of Citrus Varieties Inferred from DNA Marker Analysis of Nuclear and Organelle Genomes |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=11 |number=11 |page=e0166969 |year=2016 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0166969 |pmid=27902727 |pmc=5130255 |bibcode=2016PLoSO..1166969S|doi-access=free }} About 1913, he gave a hybrid tree he had produced at a US Department of Agriculture planting to R. D. Hoyt at Safety Harbor, Florida. Hoyt in turn gave budwood to his nephew, Charles Murcott Smith, for whom the variety was named. Smith was growing the resulting trees in 1922 at his nursery in Bayview, Pinellas County, Florida, now a neighborhood in Clearwater.{{cite book|title=Citrus: a history |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780226470283 |url-access=registration |last=Laszlo |first=Pierre |year=2007 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780226470283/page/75 75]}}
The trees grow upright, but often have branches bent or broken by heavy fruiting at the ends.
It is widely grown in Florida, where it matures from January to March. Citrus scab and alternaria fungus disease attack Murcotts.
The Murcott is one parent of the Clementine-like hybrid variously called the Afourer, Nadorcott or W. Murcott cultivar, the other parent being unknown.{{cite web|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/USPP10480|title=Mandarin tangerine called Nadorcott|work=U.S. Patent Plant #10480|access-date=16 April 2014}}