Credited to Algeria. Louis Trabut reported in 1902 that the variety arose as an accidental hybrid at Misserghin. The citrus specialist H. Chapot argued in 1963 that the clementine is of Oriental, probably Chinese, origin and identical to the Canton mandarin. The Algerian origin remains the account given by standard citrus references.
How it began
According to the botanist Louis Trabut, the variety originated as an accidental hybrid in a planting of mandarin seedlings made by Father Clement Rodier in the garden of the orphanage of the Peres du Saint-Esprit at Misserghin, a small village near Oran. It was one of several unusual plants Trabut noted there. He selected it, and on his recommendation the Horticultural Society of Algiers named it Clementine. Trabut published it in 1902 as a new tangerine. Rodier died in 1904 and was buried near Oran.
How it works
The clementine is a mandarin with deep orange to reddish-orange rind that is easy to peel, tender and juicy flesh, and a sweet, aromatic flavor. Trees of the common clone cannot pollinate themselves, so without cross-pollination the fruit is seedless or nearly so. The variety needs little total heat to ripen, which makes it mature very early, only slightly later than the satsuma mandarins.
How it spread
The clementine was introduced into the United States in 1909 and brought from Florida to California in 1914 by H. S. Fawcett of the Citrus Research Center at Riverside. A Fresno nursery catalogue of 1914 and 1915 also listed a new early mandarin from Algeria that proved indistinguishable from it. Clones were later selected in Algeria, Morocco and Spain, including the Monreal clone found near Oran in 1940 and Clementino de Nules in Spain.
Who pushed back
Trabut concluded that the seed parent was the Mediterranean mandarin and the pollen parent an ornamental sour orange known as Granito. Webber in 1943 and Tanaka in 1954 expressed doubt about that parentage. In 1963 H. Chapot, a French authority on citrus in North Africa, argued that the clementine was of Oriental origin and probably identical to the Canton mandarin.
What lasted
The citrus reference by R. W. Hodgson called the clementine without doubt the best early variety in the Mediterranean basin, particularly in North Africa, and highly promising in other regions of similar climate. It is also valued by breeders as a seed parent.
