FreshPoint

Description:

Page Mandarin are a medium size citrus fruit, with medium-thin, leathery rind that is moderately adherent but easily peelable. Their skins’ surface is smooth to moderately pebbled, and their color is reddish-orange at maturity. The Page’ s flesh is deep orange, tender and juicy, and the flavor rich and sweet (this variety is considered one of the very best…especially for juice). Seeds are moderately numerous and cotyledons pale yellow to almost white.


This early ripening, high quality variety, the fruit of which has considerable resemblance to a sweet orange, originated from a Minneola tangelo X Clementine mandarin cross made by Gardner and Bellows of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1942. The Page mandarin was described and released in 1963 by P. C. Reece and F. E. Gardner at the U.S. Horticultural Field Station, Orlando, Florida.


While officially released as an orange, technically speaking this variety should probably be referred to the tangelo hybrid group, since its parentage is three-fourths mandarin and one-fourth Grapefruit.