Im coming to California for the Rare Fruit Growers Festival in Early August. Has any one heard of a sweet orange cultivar named St. Michaels ? It was also called paper rind. It is my understanding it was an early variety planted in California, Florida, and Arizona, and is listed in several older books on the cultivation of Citrus. I was hoping any Californians or others might know where budwood could be sought for this variety so I could procure some. I dont think it is available from the UC Riverside budwood foundation either, but I could be wrong.

Patrick,

this is the first time I've heard about St. Michaels sweet orange. I've been all over several budwood programs and have not heard of it. Perhaps you are refering to Michal, it is a mandarin type with thin skin, and that one is available from the UCR Citrus Clonal Protection Program. You can order budwoods from here: http://ccpp.ucr.edu/ although currently there is a Tristeza virus scare and have no idea how you can get them on time.

Joe

It's listed in the Holdings of the University of California Citrus Variety Collection (.pdf). There's a writeup in The Citrus Industry Vol. 1, Chap. 4 under the name Paperrind.

It is not available for public release though in the budwood program, unless you are a "researcher". So it is not that popular. Haven't seen any fruits of it in any farmer's market in California, but how many farmer's market I've been to?

jungle keeper,
that is one location where I have read about it being planted in quantity prior to 1900 , but I have never found it in available at any collections. Ive also seen it listed in older turn of the century citrus nursery catalogues and described as one of the better varieties to plant. Perhaps it was so inferior to Washington navel and Valencia that it wasnt profitable to plant. I was hoping that someone might know more about this variety. I for one would like to try and judge its fruit for myself in four or five years, if its still around and buds were available.

Patrick, you don't need to wait 4 or 5 years to judge if a fruit is okay or not. I have found for myself, with numerous cultivars experienced multi-gafted on several trees, that if you graft the cultivar unto a mature tree (7 years old or more), the very next year you could have a high quality fruit at par with the same cultivar grafted to a rootstock or younger tree that has been grafted 7 years or more. Budding doesn't work well on mature citrus tree though, you will have to bark graft if your aim is to add and try to fruit cultivar in quickest time. But if your aim is plant propagation budding unto rootstock is the best way to propagate. Some cultivars like grapefruit would require longer time as it takes about 18 months for fruits to mature, and about 6 months to bloom when grafted unto a mature tree.

I would think you will have a very difficult time locating the Saint Michael you are looking for. Should you find a Saint Michael Orange you have to be careful as there are TWO Saint Michael Oranges. One is the Saint Michael Blood Orange, this is not the orange you are looking for. The Saint Michael's orange that you want is the one also called the Paperrind Orange, or the Paperrind St. Michael orange. The Paperrind orange is not a blood orange. The Saint Michael-Paperrind orange received its name because it came from the island of St. Michael, where it originated as a select seedling. It was introduced into the USA by Thomas A. Garey, the famous Los Angeles nurseryman. Streets, schools and buildings, are currently named after Mr. Garey in the Los Angeles area. I wrote a thread on this forum about Thomas Garey a year or so ago. Around 1900 the St. Michael-Paperrind orange was one of the most commonly grown varieties in California and Florida. Even though the orange is an excellent tasting orange the variety was too small and much too seedy to compete commercially with newer and better varieties that were later developed. By 1940 it was no longer grown, and therefore it was no longer propagated. I believe it will be a very difficult variety to locate. UCR does have the Paperrind in its variety collection. I would recommend you to contact Dr. Robert Kruger at the CCPP UCR and inquire what the possibility of obtaining some bud wood might be. I know Dr. Kruger, and he is a very nice person, and always very helpful. He would be the person to contact. Probably the only other opportunity of obtaining bud wood would be from someone who has a Saint Michael Paperrind tree, but such a tree would now be 80 to 100 years old. Good luck. The Saint Michael orange would be a good variety to go along with the Saint Dominic Orange that I have in my collection. - Millet

The old Thomas River's Nursery here in England stocked this variety. I have a photocopy of the relevant page in their 1897 catalogue. It says
" ST. MICHAEL's. The ordinary orange of commerce, thin skinned, large, and well flavoured."
When the Thomas River's Nursery closed around 1984, their stock was bought by Read's Nursery in Norfolk, England and they continued to propagate and sell citrus. St. Michael's is still listed in their current catalogue see
http://readsnursery.co.uk/a1commerce/orangestmichaels-p-258.html
At one time I did have a small potted plant of this variety. Sadly it died some years ago - I should get a replacement, but my greenhouse is already overflowing each winter.
Mike aka Citrange

Perhaps you can get us some seeds then, hoping that it can be nucellar and true to type. It is extremely difficult to import citrus cultivars and their relatives as it is one of those prohibited by USDA, especially to California. The California Agriculture Department is a lot harder than the USDA as well, especially when it comes to citrus. Seeds as far as I know are okay to import.

Joe,
your trees must be really super trees. In Phoenix, It takes me at least three years to get fruit from a bud if Im lucky and the growth can handle the weight of the fruit. I even have to provide a little custom shade canopy to entice a more inches of growth on my bud shoots, if only for a couple years.
Perhaps if I go through our local citrus research station, they would be willing to procure some budwood of this tree in Riverside. It would be nice to try it out, and at least offer it to other avid gardeners I know who would appreciate trying something different.
It fascinates me how some citrus cultivars seem to die out due to lack of commercial interest or disease. As far as the St. Michael Sweet Orange, I havent really found much literature other than the one Millet mentioned that explains why it fell from favor. Who knows, the flavor of this fruit might be better to the 21st century pallate than it was to those of the 19th Century!

Patrick, thanks for the compliments. My trees are not super trees. Sometimes i get blooms instead of sprouts from my budding and they develop into fruits. Experienced that only once, but several times blooms comes out first before the bud sprouted stems. My trees are ordinary, but due to how I care for them in our marginal climate they grow twice as fast as those from my neighbors and they are regularly grafted and regrafted.

Joe, you say you live in a marginal climate??? HA!
One laugh is from me , the other is from Citrange
WE live in marginal climates.
Greg