The Bitter Press

The results are in. The family is Hydrangeaceae. The order is Cornales. The genus is Philadelphus. At no point in that sentence — or in any sentence produced by any credentialed botanist across the entire documented history of plant science — does the word citrus appear. We are publishing this anyway because apparently it needs to be said again.

The study, which this correspondent neither commissioned nor needed because it merely confirms the obvious, analyzed full genomic sequencing, cladistic branching models, and what researchers described as "a frankly embarrassing amount of existing literature" to conclude that Mock Orange shares no meaningful taxonomic lineage with any citrus-bearing species. The lead researcher reportedly wept. This reporter did not comfort her. She had a lot of nerve acting surprised.

Reached for comment, factjuice.com — the rival rag operated by the so-called workers and their citrus cabal — declined to issue a correction to their 2019 piece entitled "Mock Orange: Basically An Orange Though, Right?" The piece was co-authored by Tangelo and Lemon, two individuals who are actually citrus, and who one might therefore expect to know the difference. One would be wrong. One is always wrong about this crowd.

Colleagues at The Bitter Press have been supportive. Quince sent a card. Pomelo, who is himself a citrus and therefore part of the problem in a general sense, had the decency to say nothing. Durian sent a lengthy handwritten letter that smelled like a crime scene. It was still more professionally credible than anything Tangelo has published this quarter.

The paper has been submitted to three journals. It will be accepted. It will be ignored by everyone who needs to read it. Mock Orange will write another article. The science remains, as it has always been, absolutely settled.