Today in Things that Are and Aren’t From China: Citrus

Next time you rip into a grapefruit, take a moment to contemplate the fact that your breakfast’s ancestors might very well have originated in southwestern China. A new study published last week by Nature indicates that the citrus genus originated in a few biodiversity hot spots in Southeast Asia, including China’s Yunnan province:

The origin of citrus has generally been considered to be in southeast Asia¹, a biodiversity hotspot¹³ with a climate that has been influenced by both east and south Asian monsoons¹⁴ (Supplementary Note 9). Specific regions include the Yunnan province of southwest China¹⁵, Myanmar and northeastern India in the Himalayan foothills¹. A fossil specimen from the late Miocene epoch of Lincang in Yunnan, Citrus linczangensis¹⁶, has traits that are characteristic of current major citrus groups, and provides definite evidence for the existence of a common Citrus ancestor within the Yunnan province approximately 8 million years ago (Ma).

Naturally, this all happened a while ago (during the Miocene), long before there was anything resembling China or humans and when the Himalayas were just a bunch of baby hills. Still, interesting stuff for the food history nerds out there.

Read the report here.