Eremocitrus glauca × Meyer lemon

Eremolemon

CRC 2439
PI 539801

Source

Received as a live plant from CPB to Indio, 1920.

Parentage/origins

Reported to be a hybrid between Eremocitrus glauca and Meyer lemon.

Rootstocks of accession

Carrizo citrange, C-35 citrange

Season of ripeness at Riverside

April to November

Season of flowering at Riverside

February to April

Description from The Citrus Industry Vol. 1 (1967):

"All the bigeneric hybrids between Eremocitrus and Citrus have unifoliolate leaves, intermediate in size between the two parental species but thin and bifacial like those of Citrus. Many years ago, all citrus trees except a Meyer lemon were removed from the vicinity of a fruitful Australian desert lime in the Coachella Valley at the U.S. Date and Citrus Station. Desert conditions produced about one-fifth hybrids, probably with Meyer lemons as the pollen parent. They grew vigorously, and when 8 to 10 feet high flowered and fruited rather abundantly, producing subglobose, slightly oblate, yellowish fruits, 18 to 25 mm in diameter, which have five or six segments and usually one to three seeds. Upon germination, these seeds grew rapidly and produced plants which looked exactly like the original hybrid. Doubtless these eremolemon seeds contained only nucellar-bud embryos which reproduced the mother F1 hybrid exactly. This Coachella eremolemon, as it is called, has a high tolerance for boron and doubtless a greater tolerance for salinity in the soil moisture than any species of Citrus. Its seedlings are remarkably uniform, grow rapidly when young, take Citrus buds readily, and have taproots like the Citrus rootstock used by nurserymen."