Origin and history of citrus

any tree of the genus Citrus, or its fruit, 1825, from the Modern Latin genus name, from Latin citrus "citron tree," the name of an African tree with aromatic wood and lemon-like fruit, the first citrus fruit to become available in the West.

The name, like the tree, is probably of Asiatic origin [OED]. But Klein and de Vaan trace the Latin word to Greek kedros "cedar;" De Vaan also writes "there may have been an Etruscan intermediate" to explain the change of the first vowel, and adds that "Alternatively, both citrus and [kedros] might have been borrowed from a third (Mediterranean?) language."