Lime vs Lemon

It was supposed to be a lemon tree.  Our friends bought it at a local nursery and was assured it was a Meyer lemon tree.  Meyers are rare to non-existent here in the central highlands of Mexico.  The Mexican lemon tree - limon Real - looks like a lemon on steroids, with a extremely thick skin, but 'normal' lemon inside.  A friend with a tree gave us a dozen of the large grapefruit-sized beasts which we dutifully juiced (thank you, electric juicer, as it was too large to fit into one of our handheld juicers), froze in an ice-cube tray, and transferred to a baggie in the freezer, where they await their eventual use - someday.

But back to the Meyer lemon.  We were told that it had lived in a shaded patio, and thus hadn't produced any yellow lemons from lack of sunlight.  The fruit would turn yellowish and then drop off the tree before it looked like a lemon.  [A lime left to ripen on the tree will turn pale yellow and become juicier....]

We admired the tree and tremendous pot it was in and gladly became it's new owners.  It's now sitting in our backyard where it does receive its daily dose of clear, Mexican sunshine.

However, we had doubts about its provenances.  It produces fruits that are lime-sized. They taste like limes. They work in Margaritas splendidly.  So we looked on-line for how to determine whether a tree is a lemon or a lime and followed the steps given at eHow.com.

We checked the size of the tree, the shape of the leaves, the aroma released when a leaf was torn, the smell of the bark when separated from the tree, and the color of the blush upon the flowers.

The tree passed with flying colors and a score of 100% - it's a lime!  We're hoping that the backyard will be protected enough for the tree; limes are more sensitive to cold weather than lemon trees.  Guess we'll find out in January/February.

[ Did we mention that the pot was planted with basil, rosemary, and mint around the base of the tree?  An extra treat! ]

More importantly, it seems to have recovered from the move.  Yesterday we discovered it covered in blooms - even more limes!!!

And we love the tree: the look, the addition to our backyard, and most importantly, the fruit when you don't have enough store-bought limes for that Margarita!  (We go through a fair number of limes each week and the tree would never keep up without help.)  If each of those flowers turn into a lime, it will be lime juice that we're freezing!