r/Riverside • u/TheShortestWayIsThru • 14h ago
I just found out California's navel oranges trace back to two trees that reached Riverside in 1873, and one is still standing
At Magnolia and Arlington avenues in Riverside, a tree sits inside a see-through screened structure. It's the Parent Washington navel orange tree, and I'd never heard the story behind it.
In 1873, Eliza Tibbets got two navel orange trees the U.S. Department of Agriculture had brought from Bahia, Brazil, and she and her husband brought them the last 65 miles to Riverside in a buckboard wagon. One of the two eventually failed. The other is still standing, and California's Washington navel oranges descend from those two trees.
A wrought-iron fence surrounds the tree, and today the screen keeps out an insect that carries a disease that kills citrus. I think that's a pretty great detail.
Have you ever stopped to look at it, or do you drive right past on Magnolia?