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chrisoliver

Citrus tree ID by leaf?

5 years ago





Hi, everyone! Hoping someone can give me some insight to what kind of citrus tree I might have. We bought our house a few years ago and there was a citrus tree in the back yard. Presumably grown from a seed, there were 2 main trunks, one of which I eventually removed. At that point it was probably 2.5-3’ tall. It’s probably ~4’ tall currently, but I pruned ~2’ off the top last year. It’s young, obviously. Guessing 4-5 years old, maybe?


Now, the leaves. They’re rather large, relatively speaking, ranging from 3.5” long to 7.5”. They’re dark green on top, lighter green on bottom. The petiole is winged. When crushed or torn they smell exactly like lemon Pledge. I thought it might be a lemon tree, but I’ve since read that lemon tree leaves don’t have winged petioles. My current guess is a pomelo. Looking for any other thoughts or suggestions.


Thanks!

-Chris

Comments (14)

  • 5 years ago

    Really need the fruit to tell.

  • 5 years ago

    Of course, but it may not fruit for a few more years, potentially more if it is, in fact, a seed-grown pomelo tree. I’m just curious, but also wanting to prune and fertilize it properly.

  • 5 years ago

    Prune it for shape and size, and give it the correct amount of citrus fertilizer for it's size. Best you can do not knowing much else.

  • 5 years ago

    Not sure why you suspect it is a seed- grown tree and not grafted. Did the two main trunks have identical foliage? Why did you remove one? What you have could possibly be a rootstock of some kind. The leaf is not inconsistent with sour orange. I think you’ll have to just try to fruit it and see. If it is a seedling, fruiting may not happen for many years. If you don’t have patience for that, just remove it and replant with something you really like.

  • 5 years ago

    Mostly because I never saw a graft scar. In the trunk photo I posted you can. The size and location of the main trunk I removed. It was pretty small then. I removed it to allow the tree to focus its resources on one main trunk line and hopefully improve its overall strength.


    I‘m going to keep it out of sheer curiosity to see what it is, knowing full well I could be disappointed to find the fruit is inedible for some reason. I am considering getting another citrus tree. I haven’t researched this as this has become a small exercise in stream-of-conscious writing, but are most citrus trees self-pollinating? Do they need the same species to pollinate?

  • 5 years ago

    why did you top it.. removing 2 feet??


    that sure looks like a graft wound to me.. but maybe they do things differently with citrus???


    ken

  • 5 years ago

    At the time I believed it was a lemon tree. I topped it to keep it short and round. Now... ??


    The larger of the two cuts on the trunk photo (on the left) was the trunk line that I removed. The other one, at the time, was the same size, and has since grown to become what you see in the photo. I’m not 100% positive it was grown from seed. That’s just my gut feeling. I’d love for it to be a graft, as it might mean bearing fruit sooner than later, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    I can't tell for sure whether it was grafted from that photo. Maybe it was and the main edible variety failed, leaving rootstock. Maybe you cut off the main variety, leaving the rootstock. Or maybe it was grown from a cutting or air-layer. However, since you seem to be in a citrus-growing region, it more than likely was either grafted if it had been purchased, or it could be a seedling. Too hard to tell. Grow it up to fruiting and report back!

  • 5 years ago

    I just want throw out another option, top work it and graft on whatever variety you want, if you do then you will be way ahead compared to planting a new grafted tree.

  • 5 years ago

    Yes, but some rootstocks match up better with some varieties than others.

  • 5 years ago

    True, but given the leaf shape I suspect as long as one were to stick with something in the orange family compatibility will probably be good

  • 5 years ago

    There are spines. Doesn't that imply seedling or rootstock?

  • 5 years ago

    Doesn't that imply seedling or rootstock?

    In addition trunk picture looks just like replacement of a scion by a stock has occurred.

  • 5 years ago
    last modified: 5 years ago

    Most citrus is self pollinating . iirc minneola needs pollinator, and a few others.

    For your new citrus, I vote for kumquats, but I am a little biased ;)

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