Citrus aurantium Peel Source & Identity
The botanical entity is Citrus × aurantium L., the sour or Seville orange, a thorny evergreen tree of the rue family, Rutaceae, grown around the Mediterranean and in Asia for its fruit, blossom and leaves. The part used here is the peel of the fruit. The flesh, the blossoms and the leaves are separate raw materials and are not part of this bitter orange peel extract.
Sweet orange, Citrus sinensis, is a different taxon with a milder, sweeter peel, and the two are often confused on ingredient lists. Chinese texts also use the whole immature fruit of bitter orange, called zhishi, and a differently prepared peel, called chenpi or zhiqiao, so the part and the ripeness should be stated on a specification.
Flavanone glycosides such as naringin and neohesperidin, a protoalkaloid called synephrine, pectin and the volatile peel oil are the constituent families of the rind.












