Microcitrus inodora (CRC 3785)

Large leaf Australian wild lime

CRC 3785
PI 539742

Source

Received as seed from John Carpenter, USDCS, Indio, Ca, 1977.

Parentage/origins

Parents unknown.

Rootstocks of accession

Cleopatra mandarin.

Season of ripeness at Riverside

Year round

Season of flowering at Riverside

February to May

Notes and observations

Seed collected by Don Hutchinson in New Guinea.

EMN, 12/22/1987: Tree 9 is very small. Tree 10 has considerable pale, chloritic growth. This accession does not seem well adapted to the Riverside environment. No fruit.

EMN, 1/24/1990: Greenish-yellow fruit similar to Finger lime but much smaller, less juicy, sour but probably not as sour as Finger lime. Fruit would appear to have no practical usage. Is very small and juice vesicales are tiny & not easily broken for juice.

Description from The Citrus Industry Vol. 1 (1967)

"Leaves broadly oval or lanceolate, or with cuneate bases and more or less acute or even caudate at the apex, 8-18 X 4-10 cm, with very numerous, parallel, lateral veins arising at an angle of 60°-80° with the midrib; petioles very short, 4-8 mm long, wingless, not articulated with the blade; flowers small (as in other species of Microcitrus) but reported by Bailey to be odorless; stamens free but much more numerous (over 30!) than in the other species of Microcitrus; fruit oblong or elliptical (somewhat lemon-shaped), 5-6.5 X 3-3.5 cm, with a conical base, segments 8, on drying sometimes showing ribs corresponding to the walls separating the segments; pulp-vesicles stalked like those of other species of Microcitrus, rather loose; seeds small, somewhat pear-shaped, 6-8 X 4-5 mm.

This species is a shrub or small tree 2 to 4 meters high with the trunk 4 to 5 cm in diameter. The twigs are angular like those of Citrus sinensis (the sweet orange) and have one or two slender, very sharp spines, 6 to 12 mm long. It has been found growing wild only along Harvey's Creek, Russell River, where, according to White (l.c., p. 119), it is common in the lowland rain forests at the foot of the Bellenden-Ker Range in northern Queensland near Cairns (Lat. 17° S.). This is a very rainy region, the average annual precipitation being 170 inches. In February, 1922 (?), the rainfall was 62 inches!"