SEEDLESS MANDARINS
We all like those little oranges, sweet as can be,
A favorite at Christmas and quite pretty to see
With their shiny orange skin sitting in a dish,
To eat them all seems to be everyone’s wish.

But last night by the fire as I peeled and ate,
I sat for a long moment and I did contemplate,
For not one pip or seed did I find in the fruit,
Then how on earth do trees form a new root?

All fruit as you know have pips or seeds many
For if a mother tree is felled we’d be without any
Delicious fruit unless we plant seeds in the ground,
It would be a crime for no fruit could ever be found.

So how do the seedless mandarin trees propagate?
If not from the seeds left around after we all ate
The sweet flesh then just leaving the seeds behind,
A more sophisticated method they surely must find.

Perhaps on every mandarin tree one seeded fruit grows
And they inspect every one until the seeded one shows
Then it is taken aside and saved, an orchard to begin
For to run out of mandarin oranges would be a sin.

Maybe they chop off a branch and plant that some how,
Or graft onto a different tree a healthy, very strong bough,
But whatever is done please don’t let the fruit fade away
Or it will never be the same come our next Christmas day.

(Millicent) Ann Margetson January 1, 2004