I Found this mandarin last week near Alma, GA. I thought it was remarkable that the tree survives out in the open with nothing to block the wind. The tree is next to a paved road and at the entrance of a driveway leading up to someone's pond house. There must have been an old farm house where the tree is located at one time, because there are also a few pecan trees as you can see. I could tell that it was a seedling or on it's own roots.
I didn't take a good picture of the fruit, but they were small/very small, dried out, and rather seedy. I did not taste since they were so far past season.

I'd like to hear some opinions on what variety this may be?

Seedy, mandarin, unsheltered 8a, depending on how small the fruit are -sounds like it could be changsha to me . I'm not sure how common changsha is in GA though

G is probably correct, Changsha it probably is.

Changsha

I didn't count them but I'd guess that there were 10 seeds per fruit. How many seeds does Changsha have?

Number of seeds in a changsha mandarin may vary from season to season, but generally it's between 4, 5 (in best case) and many...
Although, I'm not sure if it can be made seedless (or less seedy) by spraying a GA3 solution over the tree?


I took this picture from Tim's Backyard blog.

Best,
Igor

The changsha I've eaten had a full mouth of seeds 50+.

Thanks for the picture igor. I have a small Changsha, but it hasn't fruited yet, so I didn't know what the fruit looked like.

On this tree I found, the leaves and growth habit seem to be about the same as the Changsha, but the fruit were all very small. Also, less seeds than the one in the picture.

This may turn out to be a rather undesirable variety or Changsha, but I still give it an honorable mention. With my job, I've been down probably 3/4 of the roads in Wayne, Pierce, Appling, and Bacon Co. and it is the first citrus tree other than trifoliates that I've seen growing out in the open.

A few year ago I planted some seed-grown mandarin trees out in the yard here in North Georgia. As of this Spring, they are still alive.

One is mostly defoliated , the other is almost undamaged - they are planted side by side.

I wonder if it's possible this Alma, GA tree could be a chance seedling from some grocery store fruit?

According to the USDA 2012 Zone map Alma is solid 8B with an avg winter extreme minimum of 18F.

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/ga_scF.html

cristofre,
I agree. I think it is likely that the tree is just a seedling.

That's interesting about your North GA seedlings. It seems like most of the time when you see or hear of a tree that defies the odds like this, it is a seedling, like the Croxton Grapefruit for example.



Teh,
I was simply going by the map on my avatar that shows Bacon County, GA to be mostly in 8a.

My point is, you don't see mandarins growing out in fields without wind protection around here. We can grow them all day long with protection from the wind.

The weather site you gave is very good. I did not know about it.

If either of my 3 Changsha's ever look like that I will be ecstatic !!! One of my Changsha was fruiting when I received it a few years back and nothing since. I hope this year one of them will provide me with a small crop.

Greg