Feb 05, 2011: But enough about non-material things. In Botanical garden you can see some growing food, such as bananas, granades, etc. Citrus plants are especially impressive in this season. To tell the truth, the bitter orange (or Seville orange, sour orange, bigarade orange) is not a really good example in this row. The name is obvious, this fruit is better used for smelling, not for eating. People make from bitter oranges neroli oil used in perfumes. Besides it`s used for (o_O oh my!) for stimulating (in Russian) or suppressing (in English) appetite and for some other medical and flavouring purposes. By the way, there are no wild bitter oranges found in nature, they exist only as cultivated plants. You could ask: why cultivate an uneatable fruit? I can presume that for eating people made up oranges, and bitter oranges were intended for smelling and flavouring.

St. Petersburg Botanical Garden

species Bitter orange Citrus aurantium