Grapefruit

Surprisingly recent in origin for a supermarket staple, grapefruit (C. paradisi) originated in the seventeenth century in the West Indies, as a natural hybrid of sweet orange and pomelo. Ancestral grapefruit were first described in Barbados in 1750 as “forbidden fruit.” All modern grapefruit—supposedly named for growing in clusters like grapes—derive from seeds or plants brought to Florida in 1809. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, horticulturists tried to encourage the use of the name “pomelo” instead of grapefruit, but this did not become firmly established.