Bergamot orange Bergamot orange Citrus bergamia, the bergamot orange (pronounced ), is a fragrant citrus fruit the size of an orange, with a yellow or green color similar to a lime, depending on ripeness. Genetic research into the ancestral origins of extant citrus cultivars found bergamot orange to be a probable hybrid of lemon and bitter orange. Extracts have been used to scent food, perfumes, and cosmetics. Use on the skin can increase photosensitivity, resulting in greater damage from sun exposure. The word bergamot is etymologically derived from the Italian word ""bergamotto"", ultimately of Turkish origin: "bey armudu" or "bey armut" ("prince's
Citrus taxonomy and Hodgson (1967) saw in them four species. Genomic analysis suggests just one species, "Citrus reticulata", with even the divergent Tachibana orange (Tanaka's "Citrus tachibana"), native to Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands and southern Japan, nesting within the wild mandarins of the East-Asian mainland, and showing enough similarity to be considered just a subspecies. All characterized varieties commercially called mandarins are actually hybrids. Wang, "et al.", found that domesticated mandarins fell into two genetic clusters that linked to different branches of the tree of wild mandarins, had different deduced population histories and had distinct patterns of pomelo introgression, suggesting that they