Mato Buntan Pummelo

Hodgson (1967) wrote that Mato Buntan was “said to have been taken” from South China to Taiwan about 1700 and introduced to Japan much later. His account called Mato first in importance among pummelos in Formosa and third in Japan at that time. These are attributed historical statements; the route is hearsay, the later introduction has no exact date, and the rankings are not current.^⁠[3]

Hodgson’s 1967 profile, reproduced on UCR’s CRC 3945 page, describes medium-large, broadly obovoid-to-pyriform, seedy fruit with light-yellow skin, a medium-thick, coarsely pitted rind, 12–16 segments, thin but tough carpellary membranes, light greenish-yellow flesh and little juice. It calls the flavor sweet with mild acidity and sometimes trace bitterness; these historical descriptors are not a measured sample or scored taste result for CRC 3945.^⁠[1]⁠[3]

Hodgson’s 1967 account, reproduced by UCR, describes the tree as dwarf and small, round-topped and drooping, with short, thick, densely pubescent shoots and large, thick leaves pubescent underneath. The page does not identify this described tree as CRC 3945 or specify its rootstock, so these are historical cultivar-profile descriptors, not measured traits of the accession.^⁠[1]⁠[3]

Sawamura et al. (1990) list C. grandis Osbeck forma Mato among pummelo samples and report cold-pressed-oil volatile composition for material harvested at Kochi in December 1988. They do not identify the Mato sample to an accession or tree; the analytical findings are not sensory or juice-composition results and do not verify that it was UCR CRC 3945.^⁠[7]

UCR records CRC 3945 (PI 539398/VI 454) as budwood received from Japan in 1984, lists Carrizo rootstock, and gives its parents as unknown. These accession records do not identify the historical fruit-profile tree or Sawamura’s 1988 Kochi sample as CRC 3945.^⁠[1]