The Citron Tree.
Citria sive malus medica
A SMALL tree with prickly branches, but very beautiful in its leaves, flowers, and fruit; the trunk is grey and rough; the twigs are green. The leaves are six inches long, and of a kind of oval figure, and of a most beautiful green colour. The flowers are white like those of the lemon tree, and the fruit resembles a lemon; but it is larger, and often full of protuberances. The outer rind is of a pale yellow, and very fragrant; the inner rind is exceedingly thick, and white; there is very little pulp, though the fruit be so large. The juice is like that of the lemon; but the yellow outer rind is the only part used in medicine: this is an excellent stomachic, and of a very pleasant flavour. The Barbadoes water owes its taste to the peel of this fruit; and there is a way of making a water very nearly equal to it in England, by the addition of spice to the fresh peels of good lemons; the method is as follows:
Put into a small still a gallon of fine molasses spirit, put to it six of the peels of very fine lemons, and half an ounce of nutmegs, and one dram of cinnamon bruised, let them stand all night, then add two quarts of water, and fasten on the head; distil five pints and a half, and add to this a quart and half a pint of water, with five ounces of the finest sugar dissolved in it. This will be very nearly equal to the finest Barbadoes water.
