My job takes me all over rural Southeast Georgia. I'm constantly looking for citrus trees. There are not many citrus trees here except those that get special attention during freezes. We hit about 17F most years. This year we hit 15F in some places.

With that being said, I found this tree last week and thought it was interesting enough to share with the forum. It grows in the woods in an old abandoned hog lot where they would catch wild hogs and feed them out on table scraps and corn. The older couple that own the farm, think the tree came up from scraps that were thrown to the hogs. Interestingly, they never new the tree was there until they noticed the orange colored tangerines one year. They say the fruit taste very good. They stopped using the hog lot about 15 or 20 years ago, so the tree has some age on it. I would guess it is about 12-15 feet tall. There are also some seedlings from this tree scattered close by. I didn't see the slightest bit of cold damage on any of them either.

Thank you for heads up.
I like those thorns!

Great find Camo Hunter! Any more info about the taste, size of the fruit and the number of seeds per fruit? I'd ask the owners for some cuttings and seedlings if I were you!

I bet that overhead canopy of the surrounding forest helps a lot with that citrus tree's survival. It would still be a good specimen to propagate. Nice discovery Camo Hunter!

Yes great find. That citrus has seen plenty of unprotected winters!

Thanks guys for your comments!

@Lemandarange....... That's all I know. I need to find out more about the fruit. Maybe it will have fruit in the fall and I can make a first hand observation. They called it a tangerine, so I'm guessing it makes a medium sized fruit. Only other thing I remember is that she shared some of the fruit with their preacher. Yeah, I'll get some budded for sure. They offered one of the seedlings too. I'll wait until Fall before I dig it up.

@eyeckr...I agree the forest canopy helps it survive.

How about those thorns!....Wicked aren't they

Can you pin point on the google maps where that tree is growing?

Maybe this is the sequel to the Juanita Tangerine

We need to see some ripe fruit. The Juanita is a Ponkam if you ask me.

GREAT !!!


What a beautiful tree !!!

Better not post where it is .. mad guys like me could run there and dig it out ..

If the sourrounding tree helps to survive citrus trees, then why we just not plant the hartdy ones into a wood ?

About loosing hardiness:
It could be that the graft makes them less hardy, but the seedlings who grew under same conditions should be all same ...