Can you tell? Hint: the purple blush on the back sides of the petals gives it away.
See the comments section for the answer.
Orange blossom or lemon blossom?
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I'm Greg. My goal is to help you grow food at home, with a focus on vegetables and fruits -- especially avocados -- in Southern California. I write a new "Yard Post" every Friday.
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Purple indicates sour, I learned while on a tour of the Citrus Variety Collection at U.C. Riverside with Ottillia “Toots” Bier. And my observations of blossoms on all sorts of citrus trees ever since have supported it. So, the flower in the image above can’t be a sweet orange; it must be a lemon — it is, in fact, a Meyer lemon (not a true lemon, I know).
Why isn’t it a true lemon?
People say this because, to quote the entry on U.C. Riverside’s Citrus Variety Collection website, “Meyer lemon is believed to be a hybrid of lemon and orange parentage.”
I have a 12 year old Myers lemon tree I grew from seed…………It is always next to my lime tree and every year now i get several “sprites”………….now I have a 5 year old clementine orange next to both of them and I am hoping it finally has oranges this year…………My lemon tree did not fruit until 6 years and now i get monster lemons, some of them as big as grapefruits………I live in Indiana so half the time, these trees are in my living room…….
Does it say why they believe that?
No, but my guess is that it’s based on the fact that the Meyer lemon looks and tastes like a mixture of lemon and orange. It’s not as sour as a lemon, but not as sweet as a sweet orange (that’s right, there are also “sour oranges”). It’s not as yellow as a lemon when it’s mature nor does it ever get as orange as an orange.
Citrus taxonomy is ridiculously complex and contradictory. People who study it disagree over the nomenclature. We laymen shouldn’t feel bad about finding it confusing.
But back to the Meyer lemon: A plant explorer named Frank Meyer was working for the U.S.D.A. and found it during a trip to China in 1908. It wasn’t called “Meyer lemon” by the Chinese, of course. People started calling it that in the U.S. because it was similar to a lemon.
The Meyer lemon page of U.C. Riverside’s Citrus Variety Collection: http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/improvedmeyer.html
Today I saw a purple blossom on our lemon tree. All the other flowers are white. What is this?
Hi Henry,
Was the purple blossom open? I find that they appear purple before they open, but white once open because the inner sides of the petals are white. But maybe you have something else going on?
I recently bought a plant that is supposed to be Citrus Limetta. That plant also has flowers just like the one you have shown (purple color backside and white on upper side). I thought citrus Limetta flowers are white! Can anyone comment on this?. Did I really get a Limetta or a lemon?
Hi Fb,
I don’t grow any limettas, but checking the UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection’s website shows that the backsides of the flowers of at least one variety is purple. See the page for Millsweet limetta here: https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/millsweet.html
I don’t know if this is the case with all citrus, but with all of the sour citrus varieties that I grow, once the flowers are totally open they lose that purple blush on the back and appear totally white.
Looks like that is the plant I have. It is too small to bear any fruit. And so I have to wait till it bears fruit 🙂
Thanks for looking up.
Cool that you have a Millsweet limetta. As I said, I don’t have the tree, but I did taste one of those fruits last summer and it was delicious.
Hi
Someone offered me a Moro blood orange seedling. I have two questions.
1. How long does moro blood orange seedlings take to bear fruits?
2. I live in a place that is warm throughout the year. The winter temperatures rarely go below 18 degree C. I am told that blood oranges need some winter to develop color. I wonder whether I will ever get blood oranges in my place !
If anyone has any idea on these things please reply. I appreciate that.
Thank you
FB
Hi FB,
I don’t know the answer to the first question. I do know that blood oranges turn bloodier in climates with more summer heat and winter cold though. I’ve seen this pattern in Southern California, comparing locations near the ocean and farther inland. Do keep in mind that Moro is very bloody for a blood orange, and it turns color more than other varieties of blood orange so your chances with it are better than with, say, Tarocco.
Are orange tree leaves typically lighter green than lemons? My tags were removed by rabbits (%#*^#^*) and now I’m not sure which goes with which tree. They’re too young to bloom yet, so waiting until they bear fruit will take a year.
Hi Diane,
Darn rabbits! No, in fact orange tree leaves are slightly deeper green than lemons, if anything. One difference that might help you distinguish the trees now is that lemon leaves have bumpier edges than orange leaves.