Washington Navel Orange

UCR describes Washington Navel fruit as large and seedless, with a secondary navel fruit and a readily removable peel. The page identifies the described collection plant as CRC 1241A.^⁠[1]

UCR describes Washington Navel as a moderately sized, not very vigorous, rounded tree with a slightly drooping canopy. It reports flowers lack viable pollen and notes sensitivity to heat and dry conditions during flowering and fruit set.^⁠[1]

Historical accounts place the Bahia orange later known as Washington Navel in Bahia, Brazil, but do not establish its original tree or parentage. UCR recounts competing explanations: Dorsett, Shamel, and Popenoe's Selecta limb-sport hypothesis with probable propagation around 1810–1820, and a 1967 account's Portuguese Umbigo alternative; the mutation date remains unknown. The sources distinguish later milestones: UCR reports a 1870 USDA receipt and a separate March 1874 planting account; UC ANR recounts two plants sent to Eliza Tibbets in 1873, while the 1967 chapter dates Riverside introduction to 1873 and first fruiting to 1878. That chapter also cites an 1828 Sydney catalogue listing and Bahia/Navel commercial use by 1860.^{⁠[1]⁠[6]⁠[7]}

An Auscitrus fact sheet for southern Australia describes Washington orange fruit as usually round and seedless, relatively easy to peel, and above 40% juice at optimum maturity. It also says trees over twenty years may alternate bear and tend to produce smaller fruit; the sheet gives no sample sizes or methods for these broad commercial descriptions.^⁠[11]