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Seville Orange
The marmalade orange - a tough, thorny, intensely fragrant sour citrus grown for its thick bitter peel and sharp juice rather than for eating fresh. One tree fruits alone in zones 9-11. It is also one of only two citrus in this catalog that genuinely carries the grapefruit drug interaction.
Seville orange genuinely carries the grapefruit-type drug interaction: juice and peel contain furanocoumarins that block CYP3A4, so marmalade, sour-orange marinades and bitter-orange liqueurs are a real exposure. If a medicine you take carries a grapefruit warning, ask your pharmacist. Concentrated bitter-orange (synephrine) supplements are a different thing from the fruit and carry their own heart risks. Peel oils are phototoxic on skin; the tree is thorny.
Overview
The one thing to knowThe Seville, or sour orange, is the citrus you grow for what a sweet orange does not have: bitterness, acid, and peel.
The Seville, or sour orange, is the citrus you grow for what a sweet orange does not have: bitterness, acid, and peel. Bite into one raw and you will not do it twice - the juice is fiercely sour and the pith is bitter. Cook it, though, and it becomes one of the most useful fruits in the kitchen. The thick, rough, deeply pitted rind is loaded with pectin and aromatic oil, which is exactly why marmalade exists and why the great marmalade tradition runs on Sevilles and on nothing else. The juice is the naranja agria of Cuban and Yucatecan cooking, the acid in a mojo or a cochinita pibil. The peel flavours Cointreau, triple sec, Grand Marnier, and curacao. And the blossom - the most powerfully scented flower in all of citrus - is distilled into neroli oil and orange-flower water.
As a tree it is tough, handsome, evergreen, long-lived, and self-fruitful, with dark glossy leaves on broadly winged stalks and a habit of throwing sharp thorns on young wood. It handles heavier and wetter soil than most citrus, which is why it spent centuries as the standard citrus rootstock - the reason it also turns up as a thorny sucker below the graft on other people's lemon trees. Grow it in the ground in zones 9-11, or in a pot further north. One thing sets it apart from every other orange here and must not be skipped: Seville orange carries the same CYP3A4 drug interaction as grapefruit. Marmalade and sour-orange marinades are a genuine exposure, not a theoretical one - see the Medicine section.
Quick facts
- Life cycle
- Perennial, lives about 80 years
- Height
- 20 ft10 to 30
- Spread
- 15 ft9 to 22
- Cold
- Killed by frostdamaged below 24°F
- Heat
- Struggles above 105°F
Full sun · medium water · well-drained soil · 18 ft apart (12 to 24) · transplant
When to plant
No planting window on record for this zone. Nearest zone with one: 8b.
Frost here: last around Apr 10 (Mar 27 to Apr 24 most years), first around Oct 25. Zone averages, your own yard may run a week or two either way.
Life stages
One stage to settle in, then four that repeat each year. Windows are typical; your zone and weather move them.
First-year establishment
The first year after planting- WaterKeep evenly moist, never waterloggedevery 4 daysA new sour orange needs steady moisture to establish but hates soggy roots (root rot is the fast killer). Water deeply when the top inch or two dries; in containers, ensure free drainage. Sour orange tolerates heavier soil better than most citrus, but tolerating is not the same as liking.
- MulchMulch a ring, kept well off the trunkA shallow mulch ring conserves moisture and feeds the shallow feeder roots, but keep it clear of the trunk - citrus get foot and crown rot if the base stays wet.
- ProtectProtect from frostSeville oranges are frost-tender, damaged below roughly 24-28°F - about as hardy as a sweet orange and perhaps a touch tougher. In-ground in zones 9-11; colder zones grow them in containers and shelter them for winter.
- ProtectSite it clear of paths and play areasMost sour oranges are genuinely thorny, with stiff spines on the young wood, and the fruit drops when over-ripe and stains paving. Plant it back from walkways, doorways, and anywhere children run.
- FertilizeStart a citrus feeding programBegin a specialized citrus fertilizer with micronutrients (iron, zinc, manganese) in the warm season. Sour orange is a less demanding feeder than a sweet orange, but yellowing leaves still mean hunger or wet roots.
Watch for- Root rot from soggy soil
- Frost damage below ~24-28°F
- Yellowing leaves (nutrient deficiency or overwatering)
- Sharp thorns on young wood
- Citrus leaf miner on new flushes
Flushes of new growth
Mar, Apr, May, Aug, Sep, every year- FertilizeFeed through the growing seasonevery 45 daysApply citrus fertilizer in split doses through the warm months, watching for micronutrient deficiencies (interveinal yellowing = iron or manganese; overall pale = nitrogen).
- InspectProtect new flushes from pests and the greening vectorevery 10 daysThe tender new-growth flushes attract citrus leaf miner, aphids, and the Asian citrus psyllid that spreads citrus greening. Inspect each flush - this is the key scouting moment.
- PruneRub off rootstock suckers below the graftSour orange is itself a classic rootstock, so a grafted tree of any citrus may throw sour-orange suckers from below the union - vigorous, very thorny shoots with broadly winged leaf stalks. Rub them off young, whatever tree you find them on.
Watch for- Citrus leaf miner trails in new leaves
- Aphids and psyllids on new growth
- Scale insects and sooty mold
- Vigorous thorny suckers below the graft union
Bloom (spring) - the neroli harvest
Mar to May, every year- PollinateSeville oranges are self-fruitful - no partner neededA single tree sets fruit alone. The blossom is the most intensely fragrant in all of citrus - this is the flower distilled for neroli oil and orange-flower water - and bees work it heavily outdoors. Some natural fruitlet drop after bloom is normal.
- HarvestPick a few blossoms for orange-flower waterIf you want orange-flower water, gather freshly opened blossoms on a dry morning and use them the same day. Take only a modest share of the bloom - every flower you pick is a fruit you will not get in winter.
- WaterKeep water steady through bloom and setevery 4 daysConsistent moisture during flowering and early fruit set prevents excessive flower and fruitlet drop. Erratic watering worsens the natural early-summer drop.
Watch for- Intensely fragrant white blossoms (the neroli scent)
- Heavy flower and fruitlet drop from watering stress or cold
- Bees working the bloom outdoors
Fruit sizing & ripening (long)
Jun to Nov, every year- WaterWater deeply and evenly through the long ripeningevery 5 daysThe fruit takes most of a year on the tree. Steady moisture over that stretch sizes the fruit and thickens the rind, which is the part you actually want - a Seville is grown for peel and acid, not for sweetness.
- InspectWatch for scale, canker, and greening symptomsevery 2 weeksOver the long ripening, scale and mites build up, citrus canker spots fruit in warm wet weather, and citrus-greening symptoms (blotchy leaves, lopsided fruit) would show. Inspect regularly.
Watch for- Scale and spider mites
- Corky raised lesions with yellow halos on fruit and leaves (citrus canker)
- Blotchy mottled leaves and lopsided fruit (citrus greening warning signs)
- Rough, thick, deeply pitted rind developing - this is normal and wanted
Harvest (midwinter - the marmalade window)
Dec to Mar, every year- HarvestPick when fully orange - and don't taste-test for sweetnessevery 10 daysA ripe Seville is fully orange, heavy for its size, with a thick, rough, deeply pitted rind. It is never sweet, so the sweet-orange test of tasting for ripeness does not apply - go by color, weight, and the rind's fragrance when scratched. Clip or twist gently, and mind the thorns.
- ProtectTake the crop within the windowSevilles hold on the tree for several weeks but eventually go coarse, dry, and pithy, and windfalls stain paving. This is the classic short midwinter marmalade window - pick the crop over a few weeks rather than leaving it hanging into spring.
Watch for- Fruit fully orange with a thick, rough, pitted rind
- Windfalls staining paving underneath
- Fruit going dry and pithy if left far too long
- Bitter, lopsided fruit signaling greening
Harvest
- Fruit is fully, evenly orange (not the taste test - a Seville never turns sweet)
- Rind is thick, rough, and deeply pitted, and smells intensely aromatic when scratched
- Fruit is heavy in the hand and the juice runs freely and very sour
- Fruit separates with a gentle twist or a clean clip
- Pick when fully orange - and don't taste-test for sweetness · every 10 days
- Take the crop within the window
Per plant 40 to 600 fruits, 15.6 to 200 lbPicking pick as they ripen
Cook with Seville Orange
Watch out for
7 to know. 3 are high-risk: Citrus Greening (Huanglongbing / HLB), Citrus Tristeza Virus, Citrus Canker. 7 are active in September.
Citrus Greening (Huanglongbing / HLB)Severity High DiseasenowSour orange is not immune, and the greening symptom of 'bitter, lopsided fruit' is harder to spot on a fruit that is meant to be bitter - watch the leaves and the twig dieback rather than the taste.
Buy clean trees and cooperate with local reporting and quarantine.
Asymmetric, blotchy yellow mottling on the leaves - the pattern does not match from one side of the midrib to the other, which is what distinguishes it from a nutrient deficiency - along with yellow-shoot dieback, small lopsided fruit that stays green at the stem end, bitter off-flavored juice, and the tiny Asian citrus psyllid feeding on new flushes.
There is no cure. An infected tree declines and dies and should be removed to stop the spread rather than nursed along. Management is entirely exclusion: clean stock, psyllid control, and destroying infected trees. Report a suspected case to your state agriculture department or extension office, which is how local quarantine programs track and contain it.
Buy only certified disease-free trees from a reputable source, and never move citrus plants, cuttings or fruit out of a quarantine area - that is how it travels between regions. Control the Asian citrus psyllid on new flushes, and remove infected trees promptly to protect the ones nearby. No resistant common variety exists yet.
The most serious citrus disease in the world, and effectively a death sentence for an infected tree. A bacterial infection (Candidatus Liberibacter) spread by the Asian citrus psyllid blocks the tree's vascular system, causing blotchy mottled leaves, yellow-shoot dieback, and small, misshapen, lopsided fruit that stays green at the stem end and tastes bitter. Every commercial citrus type is susceptible, there is NO cure, and it has collapsed much of Florida's citrus industry. It is the reason citrus plants and fruit are under quarantine restriction across much of the southern United States.
Citrus Tristeza VirusSeverity High DiseasenowThis is the disease that ended sour orange's centuries-long reign as the world's standard citrus rootstock, and it is the reason not to raise your own sour-orange seedlings for grafting anywhere in the US citrus belt.
It does not make the fruit of a Seville grown on its own roots unsafe - it is a tree-health problem, not a food-safety one.
Sudden wilting and collapse of an apparently healthy tree, or a slow decline with small yellowish leaves, dieback, and a heavy off-season bloom. Honeycombing or pitting in the bark just below the graft union. Stem pitting in the trunk and branches. Trees on sour-orange rootstock in a tristeza region are the ones to watch.
There is no treatment - the virus is systemic and permanent. An infected declining tree is removed and replaced on a tolerant rootstock. Do not take cuttings or budwood from it.
The whole of prevention is clean, certified nursery stock on a tolerant rootstock, plus never propagating from unknown dooryard trees or grafting with budwood of unknown origin. In regions where tristeza is established, avoid sour-orange rootstock entirely. Managing aphids helps a little but does not stop spread on its own.
An aphid-borne virus of citrus, spread most efficiently by the brown citrus aphid and also carried in infected budwood. Its severity depends almost entirely on the ROOTSTOCK: trees grafted onto sour orange collapse at the graft union - the classic 'quick decline' - because the virus destroys the phloem just below the bud union and starves the roots. Other rootstocks tolerate it, and some strains cause only stem pitting or nothing visible at all. Successive tristeza epidemics killed tens of millions of trees in Brazil, Argentina, Spain, California and Florida and forced the worldwide abandonment of sour-orange rootstock.
Citrus CankerSeverity High DiseasenowSour orange is moderately susceptible.
Because the crop is the peel, canker lesions matter more here than on a fruit you juice and discard the skin of - blemished rind is unusable for marmalade or candying.
Raised, corky, brown lesions with a distinctive yellow halo (and sometimes a water-soaked margin) on both sides of leaves, on stems, and on fruit; premature leaf and fruit drop.
No cure for infected tissue; copper sprays protect new growth in high-pressure areas. Remove and destroy infected leaves and prunings, and sanitize tools. In quarantine regions, follow official removal/management rules.
Buy certified disease-free trees; don't move plants or fruit out of quarantine areas. Avoid overhead watering and don't work the tree when wet (the bacteria spread in water films). Windbreaks reduce wind-driven spread; leaf-miner control helps, since its wounds admit the bacteria. Choose less-susceptible varieties where available.
A highly contagious bacterial disease (Xanthomonas citri) that causes raised, corky, tan-to-brown lesions surrounded by yellow halos on leaves, stems, and fruit, leading to premature leaf and fruit drop, twig dieback, and blemished fruit; it spreads fast in warm, wet, windy weather. Grapefruit is among the MOST canker-susceptible citrus.
AphidsSeverity Medium PestnowRated a step higher here than on other citrus because aphids are the vector of citrus tristeza virus, and sour orange is the rootstock tristeza kills.
On the fruiting tree itself the feeding damage is minor spring and fall flush distortion.
Dense clusters of tiny insects packed onto shoot tips, flower buds, and the undersides of young leaves. Curled, cupped, or distorted new growth that never opens properly. A sticky shine on the leaves - and on whatever sits under the plant - that later goes black with sooty mold. Tiny white cast skins left behind where a colony has been feeding. Ants running steadily up and down the stems, which is often the first thing you notice. Mottled, streaked, or misshapen leaves that do not grow out can mean a virus the aphids brought with them rather than the feeding itself.
Knock the colonies off with a hard jet of water and repeat every few days - on most plants that alone ends it. Pinch out or prune off the worst-infested tips rather than treating the whole plant. If colonies keep rebuilding, spray insecticidal soap or horticultural oil directly onto the insects, covering leaf undersides, and repeat weekly until they are gone; treat early or late in the day, and never spray a wilted or heat-stressed plant. Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides - they kill the ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps that were about to solve the problem for you, and aphid numbers usually come back worse afterward. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating; follow that label and observe its pre-harvest interval. On anything you eat, wash leaves, heads, and buds well before use, since aphids hide down in crowns, folds, and tight growth.
Go easy on nitrogen: the soft, lush growth that heavy feeding produces is exactly what aphids breed on. Check new growth once a week through spring and early summer so you catch colonies while they are still small, and rub the first few out with your fingers. Leave flowering plants nearby and skip broad-spectrum sprays - ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps do most of this work for free, and they only stay if there is something for them to eat. Keep ants off the plant where you can, since they protect aphids from those predators. Water steadily so plants are not stressed, and check any new plant over before you bring it home or move it indoors, since aphids usually arrive on something else.
Aphids are small soft-bodied sap-suckers - green, black, gray, pink, or waxy white, and mostly wingless - that gather in dense colonies on the tenderest new growth: shoot tips, buds, and the undersides of young leaves. They breed extremely fast in mild weather, so a few can become hundreds inside a week. Their feeding curls and distorts soft growth, and the sticky honeydew they excrete coats everything below and turns black with sooty mold. Ants often farm and defend the colonies for that honeydew. A few aphids are normal on almost any plant and a healthy plant shrugs them off; only dense, persistent colonies do real damage, and some aphids also spread plant viruses as they feed.
Scale & Sooty MoldSeverity Medium PestnowCommon on sour orange, and it matters more than usual here because the peel is the crop - scale covers and sooty mold sit directly on the rind you were going to shred for marmalade.
Watch the thorny inner wood, which is exactly where colonies hide and exactly where you least want to reach.
Rows of small brown, tan, black, white, or waxy bumps along stems, twigs, leaf midribs, and leaf undersides that do not brush off but can be scraped loose with a fingernail. A sticky shine on the leaves - and on the floor, table, or path beneath the plant - that later turns black with sooty mold. Ants running steadily up and down the stems, since they farm and defend scale for that honeydew; often the first sign anything is wrong. Yellowing leaves, weak thin growth, and dieback of individual branches or canes that are heavily encrusted. On fruit crops, scale covers and sooty mold directly on the fruit. Check the leaf undersides and the shaded inner wood, which is where colonies build up unseen.
Horticultural oil is the main control: it works by smothering, so it has to coat the insects thoroughly - stems, twigs, and leaf undersides - and it usually needs repeating, because the waxy covering shields them and no single pass reaches everything. On deciduous woody plants a dormant-season oil smothers the overwintering stage while the leaves are out of the way, and timing a growing-season spray to the crawler stage, when the young are mobile and uncovered, is far more effective than spraying settled adults. On a small plant or a light infestation, scrub or wipe the scales off by hand, or dab them with a cotton swab of rubbing alcohol. Prune out and destroy badly encrusted wood rather than trying to save it. Wash off the sooty mold once the scale is gone - it lives on the honeydew, not on the plant, and stops once the supply does. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant, and oils can burn delicate foliage, so test first.
Inspect. Look over leaf undersides and stems regularly - on a crop you pick, every harvest is a scouting chance - and check every new plant thoroughly before you buy it, plant it, or set it beside anything else, because scale almost always arrives on a plant rather than flying in. Quarantine new houseplants for a few weeks. Keep plants unstressed and not over-fertilized, since soft, forced growth is what populations build on. Prune for airflow and light to open up the shaded inner growth where scale hides, and prune out heavily infested wood as routine maintenance - on anything that gets a hard annual pruning, that alone removes most of any buildup. Leave the lady beetles, lacewings, and parasitic wasps alone, since they normally keep scale down to nothing, and keep ants off the plant where you can, because ants protect the colonies from those predators. Indoors, avoid hot, dry, still winter air.
Scale insects are sap-suckers that spend most of their lives immobile, fixed to a stem, twig, or leaf underside beneath a waxy or shell-like cover. They look far more like bumps, blisters, or crusty encrustations than like insects, which is why an infestation is usually well established before anyone notices it. Soft scales excrete large amounts of sticky honeydew that drips onto everything below and grows a black sooty mold - and those blackened leaves are often the first thing a gardener actually sees. Armored scales produce no honeydew but sit under a hard shield that protects them from most sprays. They spread as tiny mobile crawlers in the weeks after hatching, which is the only stage that moves and the only stage that is easy to kill. Populations build on stressed plants, on crowded shaded growth, and above all on plants kept indoors in dry, still air over winter.
Citrus Leaf MinerSeverity Medium PestnowA vigorous sour orange throws a lot of soft new growth, so mining can look alarming; on an established tree it is cosmetic.
Go easy on nitrogen rather than reaching for a spray.
Silvery, squiggling serpentine trails inside new leaves, and curled, twisted, distorted new growth on the flushes. Mature leaves and fruit are untouched.
Largely cosmetic on an established tree - prune off heavily mined flushes if you want to, and otherwise leave it alone rather than spraying for appearance. Horticultural oil applied to new flushes deters egg-laying. Systemic controls are used mainly on young trees or where canker pressure is high.
Established trees tolerate it, so the aim is to give it less to work with: avoid over-fertilizing, which pushes out the excess soft flushes it feeds on, and stop feeding by late summer so there is no tender autumn flush to mine. Encourage the parasitic wasps that control it, and protect young trees and new grafts, whose growth actually matters.
A tiny moth whose larvae mine winding, silvery serpentine tunnels just under the surface of new citrus leaves, curling, twisting and distorting them. It attacks only the tender new-growth flushes, never mature leaves or fruit, so on an established tree it is essentially cosmetic - but it can stunt a young tree, and the wounds it leaves in the leaf provide entry points for citrus canker bacteria, which is its real significance.
1 more, low risk
Spider MitesSeverity Low PestnowMostly a problem on container Bouquet de Fleurs and Chinotto plants wintered indoors in dry heated air; a full-size outdoor Seville rarely suffers badly.
Fine pale stippling or speckling across the upper leaf surface, as though the color had been sandblasted out of it, and later a dull bronze or rusty cast over the whole leaf. Delicate webbing across leaf joints, shoot tips, and undersides - that comes with a heavy infestation and means you caught it late. Leaves that dry, curl, and drop early while the plant looks thirsty no matter how much you water it. Hold a leaf over a sheet of white paper and tap it: the specks that fall and then start walking are mites. With a hand lens, look on the undersides for the mites themselves, pale or reddish, and their round translucent eggs. Damage that shows up first on the hottest, dustiest, most sheltered side of a plant, or on a pot sitting near a radiator indoors.
Start with water. A strong jet aimed at the leaf undersides, repeated every few days for a couple of weeks, knocks populations down and breaks the cycle - on many plants that alone ends it. On anything that regrows quickly, shearing back badly infested growth resets the plant to clean foliage. If it keeps building, spray insecticidal soap or horticultural oil directly onto the undersides where the mites actually live, and repeat every five to seven days for three rounds: contact sprays do not kill the eggs, so a single application always fails. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating - follow the label and observe its pre-harvest interval on anything you eat. Predatory mites are an effective release in a greenhouse or on an indoor plant. Above all, correct the heat, dust, and drought stress that caused it, or the mites simply come back.
Do not let plants get drought-stressed - that is the single strongest trigger, and a plant watered steadily through heat is far less likely to have a mite problem at all. Hose the foliage down, undersides included, during hot dry spells: it knocks mites off, washes away the dust they thrive in, and raises the humidity around the plant for a while. Indoors and under cover, keep the air from going hot, dry, and stagnant, wipe or rinse the leaves occasionally, and keep pots away from radiators and heating vents. Inspect any plant carefully before you bring it indoors for winter or set it among others, since mites almost always arrive on something else. Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides: they wipe out the predatory mites, lacewings, and lady beetles that do most of this work for you, and reliably leave you with a worse outbreak than you started with.
Spider mites are not insects but tiny sap-feeding arachnids, smaller than a grain of salt, and you almost always notice the damage before you notice them. They live on the undersides of leaves and drain the cells one at a time, which is why the leaf goes finely stippled with pale dots before it bronzes and dries. They breed explosively in hot, dry, dusty, still air - a generation can pass in a week at high temperature - so a barely visible population becomes a webbed, bronzed plant within a fortnight. Drought-stressed plants and plants wintered indoors in dry heated air are the classic hosts. Broad-spectrum insecticides make matters worse rather than better, because they kill the predatory mites and lady beetles that normally hold mites in check.
Good & bad neighbors
All of these are traditional pairings. The evidence is thin, so treat them as a nudge, not a rule.
Plant nearby
-
A living clover groundcover fixes nitrogen and feeds pollinators; keep it and any mulch off the trunk base to avoid foot rot.
-
Draws beneficial insects and is traditionally credited with deterring some pests around citrus; French types also suppress root-knot nematodes. Harmless under a young tree.
-
Grown around citrus as a trap crop and to draw aphids and beneficial insects away from the tender new flushes; a common, harmless citrus underplanting.
-
Shares citrus's love of sun and drainage and draws pollinators to the bloom; plant a little apart, since lavender wants drier feet than citrus roots.
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Another Mediterranean, drought-loving, pollinator-friendly herb that suits a sunny sour orange; plant a little apart for drier roots.
Varieties · 4
You pick one when you add Seville Orange to your garden. Its days to maturity set your harvest window.
Seville (standard sour orange)
Round, medium-large, deep-orange fruit with a thick, rough, deeply pitted rind; often flattened at the ends and seedy.
sourthick-peelmarmaladehigh-pectinThe standard bitter orange and the one marmalade recipes mean: a vigorous, thorny, long-lived tree bearing rough-skinned, deeply pitted, intensely aromatic fruit with fiercely sour juice, bitter pith, and abundant pectin. Ripens midwinter. Not for fresh eating at any stage. This is the type to plant if the goal is marmalade, sour-orange marinade, candied peel, or homemade bitters, and it is heavy-bearing enough that one tree supplies a household.
Bouquet de Fleurs
Small, dense, rounded tree with dark glossy foliage and heavy flushes of very fragrant white bloom; small-to-medium rough orange fruit.
fragrantcompactnear-thornlessornamentalA compact, dense, nearly thornless sour orange grown as much for perfume as for fruit - the blossom is exceptionally fragrant even by neroli standards, and the plant stays small enough to be a genuinely good container and doorway citrus. Fruit is smaller than a standard Seville but still sour and still makes marmalade. The best choice for a pot, a small garden, a patio, or anywhere the thorns of a standard Seville would be a nuisance.
Chinotto (myrtle-leaf orange)
Small dense evergreen shrub with tiny closely-set leaves and clusters of small, flattened, deep-orange bitter fruit.
dwarfsmall-fruitornamentalcontainerA distinctive dwarf sour orange (Citrus x aurantium var. myrtifolia) with small myrtle-like leaves packed densely along the twigs, making a slow, tidy, almost topiary-looking shrub. The little flattened fruit is very bitter and is the flavouring behind Italian chinotto sodas and the candied chinotti of Savona. Superb as a container plant and the most ornamental sour orange, but crops lightly - grow it for the plant and the novelty as much as the harvest.
Bergamot orange
Pear-shaped to round, yellow-green fruit with a smooth, intensely aromatic rind; more upright, less thorny tree.
aromatic-peelearl-greydistinct-speciesself-fruitfulIMPORTANT - this is a different citrus (Citrus x bergamia), listed here only because it sits close to the sour oranges and is often sold alongside them; the guidance on this page transfers only loosely. It is grown for its peel oil, which is the flavouring in Earl Grey tea, and the fruit is pear-shaped, yellow-green, and even less edible than a Seville. It is somewhat more cold-tender and slower than a standard sour orange. Note also the name collision: the bergamot in a garden centre's perennial aisle is bee balm (Monarda), an unrelated North American mint - see that entry.
Grower tips
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