How did the navel orange get its name?

The navel orange gets its name from the small second fruit, resembling a navel, embedded in one end of the main fruit.

You will know the navel orange by its bright golden color and by the curious formation, like a tiny orange, growing at the end opposite the stem.

Navel Orange

The navel orange is really two oranges in one.  A small second fruit that does not fully develop is embedded in one end of the main fruit.

It produces a hollow that resembles a navel—the hollow in the middle of an abdomen or belly.

Other types of oranges sometimes produce double fruits, but navel oranges do so regularly.

Navel oranges grow on trees with shiny leaves that stay green all year.

The trees produce many beautiful, white, fragrant blossoms.  The orange are picked when fully, ripe.  Navel oranges are popular eating oranges because they are normally seedless.  To grow new seedless trees nurserymen graft stem buds from an adult navel orange tree onto the young rootstock of other citrus trees. – Dick Rogers