While we we're visiting my daughter and granddaughter in Riverside I just had to get another picture of her next to the Parent Navel Orange Tree. It was just about two years ago that I took the earlier picture of her. The Parent Navel Orange Tree is the original “Washington†Navel Orange Tree from which all others descended. It was this tree that spawned the great citrus industry in California. You can read more about it at a earlier post from two years ago. It is the tree on the right.
The earlier post is my most widely viewed post to this day. It is used as a reference for the Wikipedia entry for orange (fruit). I am footnote #2 Its amazing how this encyclopedia is becoming the reference source for certain subjects. I find myself using it more and more as I search the web.
We stayed at The Mission Inn in Riverside which is where the other Navel Orange was planted by Theodore Roosevelt. That tree died shortly after and the one I wrote about is the survivor.
The Mission Inn and The Parent Navel Orange Tree are reminders of a California that has long passed, yet changed the development of of the west, especially southern California, forever. I find the lonely orange tree at the busy intersection quite moving. It's a little sad to think about how this one tree spawned and then outlived the great citrus era of The Late 1800's to the 1950's. It stands ignored by the thousands that drive by everyday.
