Florida Oranges and Blossoms, Florida, 1936

About this postcard

The card shows three ripe oranges with dark green leaves and clusters of white orange blossoms against a mottled gray-blue ground. The fruit and flowers appear together, as they can on a citrus tree, where ripe and green fruit may hang alongside fragrant blooms. The caption traces the orange to Asia and notes that the Spanish brought it to Florida in the sixteenth century, and it describes the blossoms as thick-petaled, white, and waxlike, growing singly or in clusters. By the 1930s, citrus was a central part of Florida's economy and a familiar emblem on state souvenirs.