The fruit blossoms (the carpels) are not less oblong from the beginning, appearing as reddish and dark-green; thereafter they turn entirely green, and when they ripen, straw-yellow, remaining, however, rather small all the time and never growing to a proper size, like other kinds of Citron.

As it seems, this plant thrives better in pots, than standing in the ground, for this tree of mine has remained very short in height, and its branches have not overgrown the [supporting] stalk.''

[11] When the Corfu etrogim started to be imported into the rest of Europe in 1785, the communities adherent through Ashkenazi tradition to the Genoese variety were very skeptical about it.

Since the rules have been changed, and farmers are allowed to earn their income and pay only a tax, that's how the plantations have expanded to Agia and Preveza.

This act severely affected the Greek planters and dealers, who, left with high costs and no revenue, were forced to lower prices.

The discovery was too late for the total of 139 dead, and this composed the Jewish saying, "Rather should the etrog have a 'blatt-flaw', [a flaw similar to apple russet that is presumably caused by a scratch from a leaf, this was common in the different varieties of citron but not in the Greek] but not in any case a 'blood-flaw'", referring to the blood spilled in Corfu.

[16] As a result, the popularity of the Greek citron drastically declined in the eastern European communities that switched to the Balady etrogs, but was still used elsewhere.

After World War II, some European Jews who had relocated to Israel or the United States still continued using the Greek for at least two decades.

In 1956, Rabbi Yeshaye Gross, a Satmar from Brooklyn, proceeded to visit the orchards in Calabria, and found out that a large percentage of the trees are actually grafted.

The Greek growers, in contrast, didn't let any Jewish merchants visit their orchards to inspect their trees, and only sold etrogs on Corfu.

In those years, the Moroccan citron took place and appealed for both traditional purity without any history of grafting, and its bearing a persistent healthy pitam.

[18] In about 1850, Sir Moses Montefiore was instrumental in establishing etrog plantations in the Holy Land, in order to help the Jewish settlers survive.

As the Balady citron had little chance for success – being not so great in shape or color, with a persistent style ratio as low as 1:1000 – the Sephardi settlers, who were always positive about the Corfu, planted its seeds in the coastal region of Israel, especially in the vicinity of Jaffa.

Arab farmers imported cuttings from Greece, which they budded onto rootstock of the Palestinian sweet lime for cleansing diseases and for longer life.

The Corfu variety, which they called kubbad abu nunia ('citron with persistent style'), did not acclimatize well in Palestinian land, so growers started employing the grafting method on a large scale.

The scholar and kabballist Rabbi Aaron Ezrial of the Beit El Synagogue still certified some ungrafted citron orchards in Jaffa by eliminating the plants he found to be grafted.

The Greek-Jaffa citron was also promoted by most of the Sephardi and even some Ashkenazi rabbis, who saw a great future in the variety, with its preferred aesthetic qualities and pitam.

The Jaffa rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook founded and headed the Atzei Hadar union for kosher etrog cultivators and marketers, to prevent grafting the Jaffa etrog onto rootstock of sour orange or sweet lime, but very much promoted intraspecific grafting of the Greek citron upon Balady citron rootstock,[20] which is permitted by halacha.