A BOTTLE-NECKED LEMON 



Leonhardt Swingle, Riverside, Cal. 



THE work of A. D. Shamel on bud 

 sports and their occuiTence in the 

 citrus family has directed much 

 attention recently to this class of 

 variation. It is now recognized that 

 such sports are more frequent and are of 

 greater importance from the standpoint 

 of improving and standardizing varieties 

 than has been recognized before this 

 time. A slight examination of almost 

 any citrus orchard will usually disclose 

 many cases of sporting limbs and demon- 

 strate the need of further investigations 

 on this subject. 



The writer recently found in a Eureka 

 lemon orchard near Corona, Cal., a 

 tree bearing a large and very unusual 

 limb sport. This branch has been 

 overlooked in pruning until at the pres- 

 ent time it comprises a large part of 

 the tree. The whole limb is of a 

 peculiar type as shown by the fruit, 

 leaves, and habit of growth. It is 

 very different from the remainder of the 

 tree, which is to all appearances a 

 normal Eureka lemon. 



The fruit, as shown by the accom- 

 panying illustration, is at once distin- 

 guished by its long, bottle-like neck and 

 its small size. It is a lemon but with 

 the shape of a gourd. The limb is 

 vSufficiently productive, if the crop it 

 now bears can be taken as a criterion, 

 but lemons of this peculiar gourd-like 

 shape are not worth much in the market 

 today. This large limb and its crop 

 of w^orthless lemons may be considered 

 as so much detriment to the tree for it 

 is occupying space and using plant food 

 that might as well be used in the pro- 

 duction of good fruit. The limb is a 

 boarder instead of a producer. 



As brought out in the illustration, 

 the leaves of this limb are very different 

 from those of the normal Eureka lemon. 

 They are narrow and sharply pointed, 

 resembling willow or peach leaves more 

 than those of the remainder of the tree. 



These narrow leaves give a distinctive 

 appearance to the side of the tree where 

 this limb is located, although this differ- 

 ence in appearance is emphasized by 

 the more slender and dense twig grow^th. 



The narrow pointed leaves and "bot- 

 tle-neck" fruit constitute a distinct and 

 unusual type. There is no transition 

 between the normal part of the tree and 

 the sporting branch. There is a small 

 twig on the sporting limb near its base, 

 that bears normal Eureka lemons, while 

 a short distance above is another twig 

 bearing the "bottle-neck" fruit. Some- 

 where between the two twigs the change 

 occurred from the normal to the freakish 

 fruit. 



The discovery of this limb encouraged 

 the writer to make a search for others 

 of a similar nature on other trees of the 

 same grove. Several have been found 

 varying in degree from large limbs 

 similar to that described, to mere 

 twigs. 



It is interesting to note that there is 

 an apparent correlation betw^een the 

 "bottle-neck" fruit and the narrow, 

 pointed leaves. Where the leaves are 

 narrow and pointed, the fruit is usually 

 of this pronounced "bottle-neck" shape. 

 This apparent relationship indicates 

 that the value of a branch might 

 sometimes be judged by its leaves, 

 when pruning or cutting buds. 



The discovery of such limb sports 

 while still twigs makes it possible to 

 cut them out before they reach a large 

 size and lower the value of the trees by 

 their production of worthless fruit. 

 It is, of course, best to grow only trees 

 which do not produce such freakish 

 limbs. The next best thing is to keep 

 such limb variations in trees under 

 control by cutting them out with the 

 pnming knife so that their erratic 

 tendencies may be checked so far as 

 possible. 



559 



