Morphological Characteristics
Trees with spiny or nearly spine-less branches. Leaves usually slightly smaller than teak leaves, winged leaves narrow, obvious or only traces, leaf blade ovate or ovate-elliptic, rarely lanceolate, 6-10 cm long, 3-5 cm wide, or with larger. Flowers white, rarely abaxially purplish red, racemes with few flowers, or with both axillary single flowers; calyx 5-3-lobed, petals 1.2-1.5 cm long; stamens 20-25; style stout, stigma enlarged. The fruit is globose, oblate or ellipsoid, orange-yellow to orange-red, with an umbilicus at the top of the fruit. The so-called umbilicus refers to some incompletely developed groups of carpels that are completely wrapped by the mature orange peel, or partially wrapped and partially exposed, resembling a navel. The rind is difficult or slightly easy to peel, the scoops sac 9-12 petals, the fruit is solid or semi-filled, the flesh is yellowish, orange-red or purplish-red, the taste is sweet or slightly acidic; the seeds are few or none, the seed coat is slightly ribbed, the cotyledons are creamy white, multi-embryo. Flowering in March-May, fruiting in October-December, late-maturing varieties to February-April of the following year.
The navel orange fruit is most suitable for fresh food, fresh fruit can also be squeezed juice, with the squeeze drink, but also has a different flavor. Navel orange flowers, its flowers can be smoked rue tea; peel, leaves and shoots can be extracted essential oil.
The navel orange is rich in nutrients, many nutrients than other citrus high. According to Japan's Kobayashi chapter navel orange high-quality yield technology and other reports: from the analysis of Wenzhou mandarin orange, summer citrus, Wendan (pomelo), touch citrus, lemons and navel oranges, such as 100g of edible part of the 15 kinds of nutrients, which the calories, sugar, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B2, such as six nutritional components of navel oranges topped the list.