Yes, that may be correct, but the information seems to originate from a Wikipedia page giving Fortunes introductions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fortune#Introductions_by_Robert_Fortune
The reference for Poncirus is 'Coats/RHSD' which is not explained.
Wikipedia also says
"Barnaby Miln, a descendant of Robert Fortune, prepared this list in 1997 with a great deal of help from the Horticultural Department of the National Trust for Scotland. This list was distributed and nobody found fault with it."

Now, some years ago I contacted Barnaby Miln and he said he couldn't remember exactly where the Poncirus information came from. Not very helpful! I couldn't find any obvious references in Fortunes books. RHSD suggests a connection with the Royal Horticultural Society, but I couldn't find anyone there called Coats!

Poncirus trifoliata often has the botanical "Raf." added to its name. This indicates the name was given by an eccentric US botanist Rafinesque who lived 1783 – 1840. How come Rafinesque knew about Poncirus before Fortune introduced it from China?
Mike aka Citrange

Mike's not the Wizard of OZ, he's the Duke of Uxbridge.

Trifoliata is also called Karatachi in Japan

Mike, I have to tell you something that I have not dared to say for years as I would not offend you but under Firefox your site is all messed up and many text are unreadable.
i am under Linux so it comes either from Linux or from Firefox.
As everybody I love your site and would be very interested if you can make it fully web compatible.

Am I alone to have this issue?

I've noticed some issues too with Firefox under Windows...

The only issue I have seen is many dead links. No real issues with firefox that I have seen.

What I notice is usually parts of texts on top of each other or hidden behind an image...

cristofre,
Good catch

All,
I've no problem accessing Mike's web pages but I'm using Chrome (and sometimes Enigma) browser.

Sylvain,
Chrome, very fast, free and installs in seconds
For Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE)
http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=linux

Mike, check this:
Citrus Fruits: An Account of the Citrus Fruit Industry, with Special by John Eliot Coit (1915)
Page 43, about Poncirus:
"It is native to Japan and China and was introduced into Europe more than one hundred years ago."
http://www.archive.org/stream/citrusfruitsana00coitgoog#page/n69/mode/2up

According to that Poncirus was in Europe while Rafinesque lived.
Of course, that does not mean that Fortune did not introduce Poncirus to Britain in 1850.

"The genus Poncirus was established by Rafinesque in 1815."
http://users.kymp.net/citruspages/trifoliates.html

"Honor to whom honor is overdue."

"Rafinesque was born on October 22, 1783[4] in Galata, a suburb of Constantinople.[5][6] His father F. G. Rafinesque was a French merchant from Marseilles; his mother M. Schmaltz was of German descent and born in Constantinople.[5] Rafinesque spent his youth in Marseilles,[5] and was mostly self-educated.[7][8] By the age of twelve, he had learned botanical Latin and had begun collecting plants for a herbarium.[9]..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Samuel_Rafinesque


Further search led me to:
Mansfeld's Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops
Page 1018:
"Poncirus trifoliata (L.) Raf., Sylva Tellur. (1838)143.
Citrus trifoliata L. Sp. Pl. ed. 2 (1763)1101;
C. trifolia Thunb., Fl. jap. (1784)294"

what leads to:
"Species Plantarum, Edition 2
Linnaeus, Carl
September 1762; August 1763"

"Synonyms: Citrus trifoliata L. , bazionim (baz.) , Sp. pl. ed. 2, 2:1101. 1763. "
http://hirc.botanic.hr/fcd/DetaljiFrame.aspx?IdVrste=27608

"In the book Linnaeus listed all plants known to him, directly or from his extensive reading."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_Plantarum

However, I'm wondering:
What Linnaeus knew about Citrus trifoliata, how he got information...?

“The leaves pale on the trees: 1 the maple, 2 the oak, 3 the elm, 4 the lime, ..."
Wait a minute, what means "the lime" there ?
http://www.linnaeus.uu.se/tradgardsvandring/indexEng.php?ID=17

False alarm, Lime == Linden == Tilia

First, about the website.
Yes, I know it sometimes does not display correctly in all browsers. Although, I do sometimes check other browsers and adjust things a bit - and sometimes it will be correct if the browser is set to use the standard text size, but not if larger text is selected.
The trouble is, I'm using a very old web page editor called 'Coolpage' which is no longer supported or updated. It produces, I believe, html with many 'nested tables' which different browsers display slightly differently. However, I am totally at home with Coolpage. It does exacly what I want extremely easily. Just thinking about learning another editor gives me a headache - they provide lots of flash, animated functions that I don't want and some are expensive too.
If anyone knows a good web-editor program that provides simple text and picture postioning (and that an elderly person can learn in a couple of afternoons) then I'll consider trying it!

About Poncirus origins. Thanks for all your research and information. I will try and follow some of it up a bit more.
I knew about Thunberg, and had considered buying a re-printed copy of of his book 'Flora Iaponensis' to see what it says about Poncirus. He was quite a character - a Swede who learned Dutch so that he would be allowed into Japan as a Dutchman!

Mike.

Eh, I did it again. Have post edited (removed mentioning of Thunberg, he was in Japan 1775. and the book was published 1763.) not being aware of Mike's answer.

Sylvain - can you tell me the address of one page that looks particularly bad to you.
Thanks,
M.