# Grapefruits

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grapefruits/53417>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 6, 2001, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grapefruits/53417 "2001-02-06T23:26:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2001, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grapefruits/53417/1 "2001-02-06T23:26:18Z")

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My gramma sent me a giant box full of grapefruits from Florida. Now, I like grapefruits, but something occured to me.

They don’t look or taste anything like grapes.

So why “grapefruit?”

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**Author:** ![YTMezoan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eada6e/32.png) [@YTMezoan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YTMezoan)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2001, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grapefruits/53417/2 "2001-02-07T00:01:38Z")

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According to [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com), the yellow spheres probably got their name because they grow in clusters like grapes do.

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2001, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grapefruits/53417/3 "2001-02-07T14:49:38Z")

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[http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/citrus/grapefruit.htm](http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/citrus/grapefruit.htm)

> [@](#):
>
> Grapefruit apparently originated as a natural mutation of the shaddock or pummelo somewhere in the West Indies. It was first described in 1750 in Barbados, while the first record of the term grapefruit occurred in 1814 in Jamaica. Credit for its introduction to the United States in accorded to Count Odette Phillipe, a Spanish don, who planted it in Pinellas County, FL, about 1823. That grapefruit originated as mutation from pummelo seems more likely when one considers the number of grapefruit varieties today, most of which originated as mutations from existing grapefruit varieties.

[http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/milkads/history.html](http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/milkads/history.html)

> [@](#):
>
> How come a grapefruit is called a grapefruit?  
> The grapefruit really should have been called a different name, since the name has no botanical relationship to grapes. The size of the fruit and the fact that it grew in bunches or in clusters like grapes, prompted a 19th century naturalist to make the new fruit’s name to grapefruit.