murcott

English

a murcott tree with unripe fruit

ripe murcott fruit

Alternative forms

• Murcott

Etymology

Named for Charles Murcott Smith, a fruit grower in Florida during the early 20th century.

Noun

murcott (plural murcotts)

1. A variety of hybrid citrus tree (tangor), or the tangerine-type fruit of the tree.

   Synonyms: honey tangerine, Smith tangerine

   • 2003 May/June, Wolfgang Feger, Herbert Brandauer, Herta Ziegler, “Analytical investigation of Murcott (honey) tangerine peel oil”, in Journal of Essential Oil Research, volume 15, number 3, page 143:

     Murcott is an old tangor variety, most probably a hybrid created by W.T. Smith in Florida. Murcott tangerine is mainly produced in Brazil, with an annual production of ca. 180,000 tons.

   • 2008, Maria Cecilia do Nascimento Nunes, Color Atlas of Postharvest Quality of Fruits and Vegetables, John Wiley & Sons, page 34:

     ‘Murcott’ tangerines stored 0°C maintain acceptable visual quality during 76 days, showing only slight dryness at the stem-end after 50 days of storage (Figure 1.17).

   • 2020, José Figueira, Priscilla Porto-Figueira, Jorge Pereira, José Câmara, “Tangerines Cultivated on Madeira Island—A High Throughput Natural Source of Bioactive Compounds”, in Foods, volume 9, number 10, →DOI, page 1470:

     The main purpose of this study was to establish the volatile profile of the juice and peels of setubalense tangerines grown on Madeira Island, assess their authenticity by comparison with the closely related murcott variety cultivated in the mainland, Portugal, and explore its potential as a very rich natural source of several important bioactive compounds with differentiated health properties, namely, thymol, in the variety cultivated in Madeira Island.

Further reading

• Murcott (fruit) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia