Swamp Lemon

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Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:42 am    Post subject: Swamp Lemon
Not sure if this should be listed here or roostock. Anyway... Terry sent me some fruit with the below story attached. The fruit is the size of large Trifoliata fruit. Same look & texture. The thing is these fruit don't have the stink of standard Trifoliata. Too late to take photos, I will get some tomorrow, clean the seed and let you know what I find. Quote: Swamp Lemon Story   I finally got up with the guy who has the Swamp Lemon.  What a neat old guy.  He reminded me of my grandfather. Here's what he told me so far.     That he was 14 when he was hunting on the Livingston Creek in Delco, NC.   He saw the swamp lemon and asked he's older hunting companion about it.  His friend said that the Swamp Lemons had grown wild there on Livingston creek for as long as he could remember.  This guy Charley said that as that was 60 years ago and adding his friend’s age would make it about 125 years that these lemons were growing wild there.       I think the 60 years is reliable. I'm not as sure of his old friends extra 45years.  So, this Swamp Lemon has been growing there for 60 to 125 years.     He said that most people who live in that areas have these lemon trees growing in their yard by digging them up from this creek.  But as far as I know the Swamp Lemon trees are only growing wild along the west side of Rte. 74 where it crosses the Livingston Creek.     So I'm thinking that some one brought a fruit there from FL about 60 to 125 ears ago. The trifoliate may have been cross-pollinated from an orange.  But the fruit doesn’t look much different than trifoliate. I am surprised that in 60 to 125 years that all of the Cape Fear river isn't covered with Swamp Lemons because Livingston Creek flows into the Cape Fear River.  The Lemon site is only about 30 miles from Wilmington. Maybe the brackish water helped. After a lot of effort I obtained some fruit and seedlings and some cuttings. Now here’s the thing. The fruits flesh has no trifoliate taste or smell. None at all. The peeling has a slight off smell and a gummy nature to it. It doesn’t taste good or bad it’s kind of bland. The taste is closer to an orange than a lemon but definitely citrus. I don’t know if a regular Trifoliate has a lemon or orange taste. All I remember of the one I tried to taste was the terrible smell that was nauseating. But, unlike the usual trifoliate you can eat it. I was told that some have made lemonade with it. So, I tried it. On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give it a 5. If you live in a zone 9 or 10 it wouldn’t impress you. If you live in a zone 6 or 7 and wanted to say you drank a Trifoliate lemonade it wasn’t bad. My question is,” If a Swamp Lemon used this to re-make some of the early trifoliate crosses do you think I would be ahead of the game taste wise? This doesn’t seem to be a soil generated taste difference. The Swamp Lemon that I got is at the least third generation from the original tree and is 10 to 15 miles from the original tree. The flesh seems more yellow than Poncirus and the juice has an agreeable sour taste. There were Poncirus oils in the skin though, and the fruit size (external appearance) was more similar to Poncirus than citrange.