Today I went to Home Depot to buy an electrical wall mount guide for my room addition project and passed by quickly at the citrus section.

Noticed that they have a pot with a tag on it: Italian lemon Citrus limon "Limone", from Willits & Newcomb nursery. Enjoy like the Italians...

The fruit has a neck and thinner rinds than Lisbon. The main stem have big thorns but the smaller branches have smaller thorns just like the lisbons.

Anyone else have experience with these. What's the hardiness rating for example...

Joe:
Some Years at the CF you mentioned some advantages of having lisbon lemon VS Eureka.
Do you remember what are those?
Wallmart are now selling Lisbon liners but I hesitate to buy it but instead I bought the Dancy.

the cons: Lisbons have thorns
the pros: cold hardier than Eurekas, readily accepts buds of most citruses such as navels and satsumas, they simply grow crazy on Lisbons, currently the base of most budded cultivars to my 45-n-1 citrus tree.

Hi Joe. I think they are like the Bearss lemon (Sicilian Lemon). If so they are the least cold hardy but one of the best flavored lemons there is.

Perhaps this .pdf file link below will give more
insight into the Italian Lemons. We have two
of them in 15 gallon containers now, Santa
Teresa and Berna, both semi-dwarfs with lots
of small fruit on the trees.

We saw Lemons that had Femminello Ovale
'Santa Teresa', Primofiore and Limoni labels
offered down here. I do not recall seeing the
Bianchetti, nor the Verdelli.


Italian Lemons

Snickles

Santa Teresa Italian Lemon (Saint Teresa) –actually is a diease resistant variety of Femminillo Ovale. Santa Teresa Italian Lemon was discovered growing as a very old disease-free tree in a grove of Fermminello Ovale Lemons in Italy that had been devastated by mal secco. All Santa Teresa Italian Lemon trees are buds of this old tree. Also, Eureka Lemon is also actually an Italian lemon, as it came from a seed that was taken form an Italian Lemon (Lunario) and the person planted it in Los Angeles in 1858. Another "chance seedling" that made it big. - Millet

i know this is an old post, but i am trying to get my hand on some italian lemons and came across it.


anywho, my question is regarding the eureka lemon seed from the Lunario Lemon. Why is this not called a Lunario Lemon? Why its called a new name?

If i took a seed from a moro orange and it grew would it not be a moro, or could i make up a new name for it?

I could understand if the lemon was not identical...

While citrus seed almost always comes true from seed, every now and then a seed, know as a chance seedling, will produce a tree, and or fruit of superior quality than the fruit it came from. Many times "chance seedlings" are rather similar to the mother tree and sometime they are quite different. The seed that produced the Eureka Lemon was one seed of MANY Lunario seeds that were planted. That one seed produced a tree that stood out from the rest and was deemed to be superior to the Lunario Lemon and thus Mr. Garey gave the tree a new name.

Check out this post: link

Millet
Carl Linnaeus 1707 -1778
Father of the Binary Nomenclature
300th Anniversary of his birth

It is amazing to me how much I've learned here, & the more I learn, the more I want to know. Millet, I hope you get a whole bunch of special "chance" seedlings & they are named after you!

that is very interesting....chance seedling...i see..


now my next question is that if the eureka was deemend superior to the Lunario, how much different is it acutally? Does anyone have a picture of a Lunario to show physical differences or know of taste differences?

The eureka is supposed to be very similar to the lisbon lemon correct? Was the lisbon lemon a chance seedling of something from europe from portugual im assuming?

Based on my own experience and perhaps other citrus afficionados, the Lisbons are far better than the Eureka.

What lemon fruits we get from the stores are most likely lisbons because they are more uniform and has more lemony zest into them. Lisbons are cold hardier than Eureka and Lisbons can be readily grafted with many other citrus cultivars compared to Eureka which the grafts are usually not as vigorous (but can be taken advantage of).

Big disadvantage of Lisbon for home growers is that the Lisbon has small spikes or thorns at each node, but that is something that I can tolerate. The Eureka are mostly "spineless".

I posted a link that discusses to death the various lemons.

joe did you end up buying any of the italian lemons you saw for sale?

Moretti ask: >>>>> "show physical differences or know the taste differences?"<<<<<

With chance seedlings the difference in physical appearance and taste qualities can be a reason for a superior cultivar, however many times appearance and taste has nothing at all to do with it. Tree vigor, tree hardiness, resistance to disease, time of harvest, general crop load and on and on is what makes the tree stand out.

Millet

Oh how I wish the Home Depot or Walmarts up here would just give some citrus a chance and put a few for sale and see what happens. They have orchids until you can't see anymore,(just bought another one) and I keep looking and hoping but so far none to be had in Minnesota!