A few months ago I planted about 18 Flying Dragon seeds, but nothing seemed to have germinated. Just before our hard freezes in January, I picked two of the three Chinotto fruits on my tree. I got the tree as a seedling from a friend about nine years ago and this was the first flowering and the first fruits. The third fruit I picked a few days ago and left on the counter. My wife thought it was a Page and said it was dried out.

Anyhow, I opened one of the fruits yesterday and to my surprise, it was not sour. I had always thought Chinotto was a sour orange, but this was a nice tasting, sweet fruit. So I planted the seeds in the same six packs as the Flying dragon seeds had been in, and was pleasantly surprised to find one of the FD seeds had germinated.

The question is, are Chinotto usually sour, or could this be sweet because I left it on the tree so long?

Chinotto is classified as a sour orange, but gets quite sweet and very eatable.

Laaz, it is so good that I hope to get a bunch of new trees out of these seeds. I know it will be a few years before I get any fruit, but it is such a nice looking tree to use for landscaping.

Sour Orange is the common name of the species, Citrus aurantium, or type of "Orange" that was introduced to Europe, before the better tasting Sweet Orange, Citrus sinensis, became popular. The Sour Orange group can be distinguished most often by the broad petioles of the leaves, and the scented foliage. It is a very large group, including Rough Seville, Dai Dai etc, and also hybrids such as Smooth Seville, Kinkoji, Hassaku etc.
Various cultivars are not necessarily sour to taste, and some are very popular in Japan, although this may be waning with younger people.

Chinotto is fairly mild, compared to Seville, but not remarkably sweet ?, and tends to get dry if left on the tree too long. The seedlings are very distinct from early on, and fairly true to type.

I figured I had one little gap left and managed to get a Chinotto tree at a local garden center. It looked like it had been there for years but was looking healthy despite being undernourished.
I eat calamondins like candy so I will see if I'm up to the challenge otherwise it's into the marmalade they go.
I'm speaking long term as the fruit had all dropped.
When are they at full maturity? I find nothing much on the net except that damn drink. Never tasted it but think I will boycott it anyway the hastle it's caused my search.

One man's candy is another man's vinegar. I had a Chinotto Sour Orange tree some years back. It made a great addition to the compost pile. I would say that the Chinotto would make a good ornamental tree, due to its small leafed tightly compacted growth.

Although the Chinotto orange is very distinct from other forms of the Sour Orange, it is apparently closely related to that species, and has been found to occur as a bud mutation growing out of the trunks of the typical Sour Orange tree. This bud mutation was first found by Swingle in a grove near Leesburg, Florida. Webber, also found Chinotto Orange branches growing out of old Sour Orange root stocks, that had been budded 5-6 feet high with Sweet Orange tops. The Sweet tops had been entirely killed by a freeze, and where the old Sour Orange trunks were throwing out abundant sprouts in recovery, the sprouts were mainly typical Sour Orange, but among them here and there growing out of at least eight or ten different trees were myrtifolia (Chinotto) sprouts. (The Citrus Industry Vol. 1) - Millet (904-)

Wonderful pictures of chinottos at a castle in Holland.
http://www.homecitrusgrowers.co.uk/citrusplaces/twickel.html

That's my web-page and photos, so thanks for the comments!
Yes, the Chinotto trees at Twickel were wonderful - and in fact the whole place is very beautiful. I'd never heard of it before I did a bit of research into the Dutch royal family's connection with orange trees, but I can recommend a trip if you're anywhere nearby.
Mike/Citrange

I show it to quite a few people that I'm trying to get interested in citrus trees. Hopefully one day I might get to Twickle although it's a long way from NZ.
As Mark said. your site is awesome!