The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Cold Hardy Citrus => Topic started by: Citradia on February 11, 2018, 12:15:18 PM
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I am currently en route, embarking on an exciting adventure, to Delco, NC in search of the elusive and highly sough-after Swamp Lemon! I'll let y'all know if I find some. Hope to find some seed-filled fruits in a ditch off of hwy 74, or maybe a local nursery will be open tomorrow and have a lovely assortment of potted specimens to choose from at a very low price! Got it all figured out.
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Exciting news. Can't wait to hear the results of your quest.
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Yes, I remember a few articles several months back, about the swamp lemon, and the "exact" location of where to locate a source for it.
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(https://s14.postimg.cc/c0iyeuqhp/IMG_5594.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/image/c0iyeuqhp/)
(https://s14.postimg.cc/ug3fc9cbx/IMG_5595.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/image/ug3fc9cbx/)
Well guys, the fantasy is over! I went to the Livingston creek in Delco, NC and tromped around on the west side of the creek and alas! Didn't see no swamp lemon tree, no Sasquatch, and not even a unicorn! I've called around all the local nurseries and no one knows what I'm talking about and only one nurseryman in Wilmington has flying dragon and Meyer lemon. I've been to Purple Pepper nursery in Delco, which is a rocks throw from the creek, last year and they had no citrus. They're closed January and February but I stopped and looked through fence and saw no trifoliate or citrus. Left a message though. Actually, I got my three trifoliata trees from Sandy Mush nursery in Sandy Mush in western NC, and the owner told me she got hers from local person who makes marmalade out of hers, and the fruit I've tasted from my tree isn't horrible and actually has a lilac kind of flowery taste. So , since I can't find a special swamp lemon, I'll be content with my special mountain orange!!! I'm going back home now.
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Perhaps you should go back in the summer when the trees of the area are in foliage and perhaps fruit.
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What about the palmtrees? Sabal minor? Or Rhapidophyllum hystrix? Swamp lemon looks like a common Poncirus -am I right? But it seems to be much less cold hardy, I suppose.
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Yeah. If I had a public dock to put a canoe in the creek and had permission from whoever owns the property, etc, I could have spent all day cruising those woods, but I was pulled off on side of major highway? A house on other side of creek, just waiting for cops to show up and ask why I'm trapsing around in whoever property, and when I tell them I'm looking for wild citrus in NC, the'd take me to the nut house. Actually, I knowhat poncirus looks like in winter and if it was where I was, I would have seen it. It would be more productive to drive around the area scoping out people's yard to see if one is in front yard, and then chance knocking on their door to inquire about a tree.
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What about the palmtrees? Sabal minor? Or Rhapidophyllum hystrix? Swamp lemon looks like a common Poncirus -am I right? But it seems to be much less cold hardy, I suppose.
Why do you think it is less hardy?
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This area where I searched was very swampy and The west side of the creek I was standing on was actually an island with cypress swamp to the west. After driving around Columbus county today and in the past, I've noticed that this area is largely swamp land and as many know, eastern NC is known for occasional catastrophic flooding. I wonder if maybe these wild poncirus trees may have died out from flood damage.
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Hi Ilya, I read about the climate in the region where they have found swamp lemon. That's why my conclusion was -maybe less hardy than Poncirus. But hopefully I am wrong.
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I have in mind that the original place is next to a road crossing the river. I think it was vaguely described in the old forum.
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> it seems to be much less cold hardy, I suppose.
No, it is not.
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Could this evergreen shrub (https://www.google.fr/maps/@34.3173497,-78.2906427,3a,51.7y,178.11h,77.43t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfSSXFNkspUzjGFbo0yvuEw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?dcr=0) growing on the West bank of Livingston Creek be a Swamp Lemon?
(https://b.radikal.ru/b31/1802/a2/1e74928e3274.png) (https://radikal.ru)
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What about the palmtrees? Sabal minor? Or Rhapidophyllum hystrix? Swamp lemon looks like a common Poncirus -am I right? But it seems to be much less cold hardy, I suppose.
The place on the internet where I read about it showed pure P. trifoliata, Swamp Lemon, and citrange leaves. The Swamp Lemon leaves were intermediate between the pure trifoliate and the citrange leaves. Not proof, but suggests to me that it isn't pure trifoliate. Either way, I want it. Assuming it exists.
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Could this evergreen shrub (https://www.google.fr/maps/@34.3173497,-78.2906427,3a,51.7y,178.11h,77.43t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfSSXFNkspUzjGFbo0yvuEw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?dcr=0) growing on the West bank of Livingston Creek be a Swamp Lemon?
(https://b.radikal.ru/b31/1802/a2/1e74928e3274.png) (https://radikal.ru)
That is great Ilya!
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Ilya, I parked the truck at the end of that metal guard rail on west bound side of Hwy 74 at the sign that said " Livingston Creek ", and walked down the length of the guard rail, scanning the woods as I walked until I got up to the bridge crossing the creek and walked down the steep embankment and jumped across a small flowing ditch/ stream to get to the island/ creek bank described in the story. That bush you got a picture of looks like one of many scrubby laurel bushes I've seen in the area. We've had a pretty cold winter here this year and all the trifoliata I've seen in this state are almost completely leafless right now. I traveled the length of this state this weekend in the passenger seat , while my husband drove, looking out the window looking for citrus trees on the edge of the woods and in people's yards like a fanatic. I really wish I had seen a trifoliata or s citrange in those woods. I even asked local extension agent and park rangers about the swamp lemon, and they thought I was nuts. I had to educate the extension agent about it.
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May be Millet or some other American members of old forum who know this guy Terry from Wilmington can ask him for help ?
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Ilya11, I don't know anything about Terry..
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Sylvain, cold hardy would be great news! Not bitter and hardy could be the beginning of new ages of hybriding for cold hardy citrus.
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Swamp Lemon is called Nikita in Europe.
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Really? Is it available? Or might "Nikita" be identical with Poncirus+ Ilya told us of?
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These are two different varieties
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But is Nikita really identic with Swamp Lemon?
Best Regards
Robert
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The story is told in sylvains and Ilyas post at this link
http://www.agrumes-passion.com/poncirus-citranges-porte-greffes-rustiques-f67/topic5861.html (http://www.agrumes-passion.com/poncirus-citranges-porte-greffes-rustiques-f67/topic5861.html)
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Citrus Growers Forum post from 2008
http://pafranceparamoteur.free.fr/datas/perso/Agrumes/Citrus%20Growers%20Forum%20::%20Voir%20le%20sujet%20-%20Swamp%20Lemon.html (http://pafranceparamoteur.free.fr/datas/perso/Agrumes/Citrus%20Growers%20Forum%20::%20Voir%20le%20sujet%20-%20Swamp%20Lemon.html)
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Is anyone growing the swamp lemon mentioned from the post? Terry sent some fruit around, so I assume someone is growing it outside of it's original collection spot.
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(http://pafranceparamoteur.free.fr/datas/perso/Agrumes/Swamp_lemon.jpg)
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Professionals at work ;)
are these seedlings or grafts? If they are seedling is there variation?
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Seedlings.
No variation.
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Would it be worth another search? It is a few hour drive for me but the fruit should be visibly ripe in a couple weeks, perhaps the ideal time to find plants. .
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It definately would... :)
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Swamp Lemon flower
(https://a.radikal.ru/a12/1808/aa/f3e4774cd363.jpg) (https://radikal.ru)
Immature fruit
(https://a.radikal.ru/a42/1808/53/f3671ff228e6.jpg)[/url
(https://radikal.ru)
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Swamp Lemon flower
Both the flowers and leaves look trifoliate in the pictures you posted.
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But it is a PT!
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The Swamp Lemon leaves were intermediate between the pure trifoliate and the citrange leaves. Not proof, but suggests to me that it isn't pure trifoliate.
That thought entered my mind when I looked at the picture as well.
It could just be a seedling of citrange, or possibly there may have been some cross-pollination with the trifoliate population growing out in the wild, and then the plant that had fruits without a bitter taste were positively selected for by the birds, and spread faster than normal trifoliate would.
I'm thinking, for example, that maybe there was someone who planted a citrange tree outside, or maybe it came from a rootstock that had overgrown its scion and the owner did not realize it, probably a potted orange tree brought inside during the winter, and then a bee carried this citrange pollen to one of the surrounding trifoliate plants in the surrounding vicinity. Or maybe the pollen came from a potted Meyer lemon, and the trifoliate x Meyer lemon offspring managed to survive and grow to eventually blossom, and then to pollinate a trifoliate tree growing in the wild. Then one of the seeds from that fruit grew, and the animals spreading the seeds much preferred the taste of this new trifoliate variety, so there was genetic introgression into the local wild trifoliate population.
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The ratios of lengths of side and middle leaflets on photo of Terry's initial post are identical between Swamp Lemon and "standard" PT ( ~0.75)
Moreover, there exist hundreds different poncirus strains and leaves on individual plants exhibit a lot of variation. Swamp Lemon is not showing any features that confirm the presence of citrange influence.
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They said on the Making it Grow show on Tuesday's on public TV out of South Carolina that trifoliata is invasive in SC and is actually plugging up creeks and streams there. Coastal NC where swamp lemon supposed to come from is a similar climate with live oaks, cabbage palms, palmetto bushes,etc. I didn't see anything resembling trifoliata in the immediate vicinity of where it was found in the past, but maybe one day when I have a three day weekend, I'll take my kayak down there and explore waterways.
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The place on the internet where I read about it showed pure P. trifoliata, Swamp Lemon, and citrange leaves. The Swamp Lemon leaves were intermediate between the pure trifoliate and the citrange leaves. Not proof, but suggests to me that it isn't pure trifoliate. Either way, I want it. Assuming it exists.
This is the picture:
(http://citrusgrowersstatic.chez.com/web/images/7d4f921aa5dc.jpg)
It clearly shows that Swamp lemon is a PT not a citrange.
SoCal2warm you steel have a very strong imagination.
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Yes, from that picture comparing leaves it obviously looks like it's much closer to regular trifoliate than to citrange.
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It is not closer. It is PT.
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Obviously there are two differnt kind of PT-flowers. Some paperthin and big diameter and others like the one shown on the picture. But all of them without remarkable fragrance.
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I think I may have already alluded to this theory earlier in this post/thread, but the current flood waters in eastern NC are probably not good for any citrus, swamp lemon, or not. Almost all of eastern NC from I95 east is under water. This is not a rare occurrence for this region since rivers there are prone to flooding historically speaking. I didn't see poncirus in Whiteville area perhaps because they'd been flooded out of existence long ago. The search, however shall continue.
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Sounds like a citrumello...
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Sounds like a citrumello...
Never heard singing citrumelo :)
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Lmao! Down here you hear banjo's out in the swamps... Be afraid!
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Swamp lemon fruit (left) compared to regular trifoliate (right). Basically indistinguishable tastewise, sizewise etc.
(https://i.postimg.cc/MvqknXwx/20181021-202315.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/MvqknXwx)
(https://i.postimg.cc/w1jSkP3G/20181021-202428.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/w1jSkP3G)
(https://i.postimg.cc/8fGYfXqw/20181021-202608.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/8fGYfXqw)
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Eyeckr, if there is no difference, there is no Swamp Lemon ;)
Ilya has shown the difference in juice colour and there shold be a lack mof resin aswell, if I got it right.
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Eyeckr, if there is no difference, there is no Swamp Lemon ;)
Ilya has shown the difference in juice colour and there shold be a lack mof resin aswell, if I got it right.
Actually it was Poncirus+ tasting, not Swamp Lemon, I shall present side-by-side comparison of them in a few weeks.