Citrus aurantifolia chinotto

Citrus aurantifolia
Citrus aurantifolia is a species of Citrus with foliage similar to that of the common myrtle. It is a compact tree with small leaves and no thorns which grows to a height of three metres.

Ornamental orange. Very ornamental with small dark green leaves and a neat compact growth habit. Masses of fragrant white flowers in spring and summer followed by oranges. The fruits, although bitter to eat, can be used in making marmalade.

Feed in summer months and use rain water, giving the compost a drench then allow to dry again before watering.

Growth and flowering
The most striking and most beautiful thing about the Chinotto orange tree are the petals, which literally emerge from every leaflet, yes, they just spring right up. When they are in the balloon stage or when they open up to a full size of up to 2 to 2.5 cm, you can hardly imagine that so much volume, beauty and fragrance can come out of one bud! Of course, the little tree has lots of effort to develop all the fruits to maturity as well as to size, and it is worthwhile to thin out some of the fruit. For example, leave only one young fruit on every fruit cluster. It is then rather possible that the small, cute bitter oranges develop to the full size of approximately 60 grams. The rich harvest has a different effect: the branches growing compactly upright when the tree is young and it tends to slope downwards with increasing age and under the weight of the mass yield.

Fruit
Green harvested Chinotto fruits have the highest amount of bitterness and for some beverages this ripeness is preferred. Then the fruit colour changes from yellow to orange. Only the orange fruits can be processed into the typical tasting bitter orange marmalade; the earlier stages are too bitter and too sour.