Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree

Two trees reached Eliza Tibbets here in 1873, propagated by the Department of Agriculture from Brazilian bud stock, and their fruit was seedless, which is to say sterile, which is to say every Washington navel since has been a cutting. The variety is one individual grafted without end. This is the survivor of her two, moved to this triangle in 1902 and kept going by inarching, fresh roots spliced on in 1918 and again in 1951. Tibbets died in 1898 with none of the money the fruit made.

What the plaque says

To honor Mrs. Eliza Tibbets, and to commend her good work in planting at Riverside in 1873, the first Washington navel orange trees in California, native to Bahia, Brazil, proved the most valuable fruit introduction yet made by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Riverside Chinatown Site — 2.2 mi
  Riverside's second Chinatown — an empty lot on purpose, with eighty percent of it still underground.
• Sherman Institute & the Sherman Indian Museum — 2.4 mi
  The federal Indian boarding school Riverside lobbied to get — still a school today, its 1902 building now a museum.
• Mount Rubidoux — 2.7 mi
  The mountain all of Riverside walks — and the half-acre at the summit the city sold rather than go to court.
• Harada House — 3.3 mi
  The 1884 cottage a Japanese American family bought in their children's names, and kept in court.

More markers nearby

• Mission Inn — 3.0 mi
• De Anza Crossing of the Santa Ana River, 1775 and 1776 — 3.1 mi
• Harada House — 3.3 mi
• Cornelius and Mercedes Jenson Ranch — 3.4 mi