The Limon Tree???

  Along about this time of year, I get to pondering the methods used to create "hybrid" or specialty fruits.  There is a lot of work that goes into cross pollinating blooms.  Maybe the process has changed a good bit since I helped Pop back on the farm but the idea is probably still the same.  Most of the time, we were experimenting with fruit trees.  You find the fruit tree that makes the largest, sweetest and most appealing fruit, then artificially pollinate it with a tree that is a prolific bearer.  The result would hopefully be a tree that had both.  It took knowledge, time and an awful lot of patience and luck to get the results that were desired.  Grafting seemed to be the way to go.  With grafting, a branch from one tree was attached to another and you merely came up with more trees with the same type of fruit.  It was easier than pollinating and did not take nearly as long to see results.

  What brings up this matter is that the citrus trees are blooming.  While we have a variety of trees, one in particular, started the pondering.  Years ago, this tree started out as a lemon.  It made the nicest lemons imaginable!  Then, a few days of below freezing weather brought that all to a halt.  The tree died all the way to the ground.  I was ready to pull up the dead thing and start over but at the urging of Son, I did not.  "Give it time." said the man of few words.  So I did.  The tree grew.  I suppose this was a grafted tree and the "lemon" died but the original tree root somehow survived...but what was that original rootstock?   

  Once the tree was large enough to bloom, it did so profusely!  Thousands of blooms dotted the branches.  Oddly enough, the blooms outnumber the leaves making a rather funny looking tree.  Of those thousands of blooms, some made fruit. The tree was no longer a lemon tree.  The fruit appeared to be a lime...on the outside.  It never ripened to the lemon yellow but stayed the rich lime green.  Inside, however, the fruit tasted like lemon!  It was delicious!  So the tree stayed.

  This year, the tree did not disappoint with its blooms.  Hopefully, I will have a bumper crop of lemons...uhh...limes....uhh...limons?  Whatever!