[1] The clementine, which happens to be one of the two parents of the orange (photo © Fruits From Chile | Facebook).

[2] Parent #2: the pomelo (photos #2, #3, and #5 © Good Eggs).

[3] The hybrid: the orange (here, a cara cara orange, which is a natural mutation of the navel orange that gave it rosy flesh).

[4] Kishu, the sweetest, most petite of the mandarins (photo © Melissa’s Produce).

[5] The navel orange, which got its name from appearing to have a belly button.

February 15th is National Clementine Day, celebrating one the most popular varieties of mandarin. “Mandarin orange” is a misnomer. While they are in the same genus (Citrus) they are two different species:

 
Thus, there are mandarins and there are oranges, but there are no mandarin oranges.

In fact, the mandarin (photo #1) is actually one of the two parents of the orange (photo #3). The orange is a hybrid of the mandarin and the pomelo** (Citrus maxima, photo #2).

Other familiar mandarins include tangelos, tangerines, tangors, and satsumas.

Mandarins are smaller, easier to peel, and generally sweeter, while pomelos are large and acidic, like grapefruit***.

We hope the kishu (photo #4, a very small, ultra-sweet, seedless mandarin from Japan, will become more common in the U.S. They are now grown in small amounts in California. They have a short growing season, December to February.

You can still get some for this season.

Melissa’s Produce, our go-to-for specialty produce is sold out of them for the season, but Frog Hollow Farm still has some to send.-

> Check out the differences between mandarins and oranges.

> The history of oranges.

> All 80 fruit holidays are listed below.

> The history of mandarins is also below.
 
 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF FRUITS VS. VEGETABLES

In the list of fruit holidays below, you’ll notice some fruits that you think of as vegetables—eggplants and squash, for example.

That’s because of botanical classification, the scientific system of categorizing and naming plants based on their shared characteristics and evolutionary relationships.

You probably studied it in high school biology*.

Briefly, the botanical difference between fruits and vegetables:

 
A simple way to think about it is: If there are seeds inside the item of produce you buy, it’s a fruit, no matter what it tastes like.

We want to take a minute to explain the classification system.

> If you don’t want to review it, just skip to the next section.
 
 
Why Does The Nibble Care About Classification?

We like to know about food, down to the tiniest details. We love learning little thing like: Apples, berries, pears, nuts, and stone fruits are members of the rose family, along with numerous non-edible plants and flowers.

We like to understand things, such as: There is absolutely no relationship between black pepper and chile peppers, even though they are both hot and spicy. (That heat is why Columbus named chiles “peppers,” mis-guiding humankind from that point on.)

When we wondered why Brussels sprouts often have a tinge of mustard flavor, we learned that they are both members of the Brassicaceae family, also called Brassicas, the cruciferous family, and the mustard family.

Mustard greens gave the family its casual name. Check out all of the familiar vegetable members in the footnote‡. (Brassicas the vegetables that are the most high in antioxidants).
 
 
This Classification Is The Same For Plants, Animals & All Other Living Things

The main ranks of classification (with examples for the orange):

 
Each species can have numerous susbspecies. Familiar subspecies include:

Native to Southeast Asia, mandarins are believed to have originated in Southern China, India, and Vietnam. They were likely cultivated as early as the 10th century B.C.E., though some evidence suggests they might have been domesticated even earlier in China.

Little information is available about mandarins in Chinese literature, but as far back as 1178 C.E., Chinese author Han Yen-chih described 27 different varieties of mandarins (source: Etienne Rabe, Vice President Agronomy, Wonderful Citrus).

Highly valued for their sweet flavor and aromatics, the fruit was considered a symbol of good luck and prosperity in Chinese culture.

The name “mandarin” was bestowed by European traders, after the Mandarins who were high-ranking government officials in China during the imperial era. The fruit was exotic, prized, and respected, like the Mandarin officials themselves.

Its name in Mandarin Chinese is chéngzi.

The name “mandarin” for the fruit didn’t appear in the West until the 16th century. It had begun to spread beyond China long before then.

 
 
A YEAR OF FRUIT HOLIDAYS

Note that this list features holidays that focus on the fruit itself, but not recipes made with the fruit. Thus, it shows “apple day,” but not “apple dumpling day.”

An exception is when the fruit is easily transformed into a related product, e.g. apple juice; or when it honors the plant that bears the fruit.

 
 
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*The Six Kingdoms System consists of Animalia (animals), Plantae (plants), Fungi (mushrooms, molds, yeasts), Protista (single-celled eukaryotes like amoebas and algae), Bacteria (true bacteria), and Archaea (ancient bacteria-like organisms).

Minerals are not part of modern biological classification because they are non-living substances.

When we went to high school, we were taught three kingdoms—Plant, Animal, and Mineral. In 1990, based on advancements in molecular biology and phylogenetics, the six-kingdom system was established, building on earlier classification systems. See them in the footnote*.

The first classification system, dividing all living things into Animal and Plant, was established by Carl Linnaeus in 1735. It is continuously refined with advances in plant genetics and phylogenetics.

**The orange, a hybrid, gets its sweetness from its mandarin parent; from their pomelo parent, it gets its larger size—although oranges are not as large as pomelos, which are larger than grapefruits.

***The grapefruit itself (Citrus × paradisi) is a hybrid, between a pomelo and an orange. The pomelo (Citrus maxima, photo #2) is not a hybrid but a species in its own right. The pomelo is considered the largest of the citrus fruits. It is native to Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.

†Savior of the Apple Feast Day is one of the three holidays in Russian Orthodox Christianity when food is consecrated in the church and then consumed by the faithful (the others are the Honey Feast of the Savior on August 14th and the Nut Feast of the Savior on August 29th).

The holiday is of pre-Christian origin and is associated with the collection of ripe fruit, especially apples. Usually, on this day, people eat apples, apple pies, or other dishes with apples, even if they are not Russian Orthodox.

‡The Cruciferous vegetables, in alphabetical order: arugula (Eruca vesicaria), broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) Brussels sprouts (Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera), cabbage (Brassica oleracea), cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis), collard greens (Brassica oleracea var. viridis), horseradish (Armoracia rusticana) kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala), mustard greens (Brassica juncea), radishes (Raphanus sativus), rutabagas (Brassica napus), turnips (Brassica rapa), and wasabi (Wasabia japonica—in the Brassicaceae family but in the genus Wasabia instead of Brassica).