\ Matter of Taste 
Manny and Issa pick limes from their own trees 
grounds of my motel in Key West 
and two others in a private botanical 
garden. Manny and Issa’s Restaurant 
in Islamorada generously provided me 
with a bag of fruit. It would evidently 
not be difficult to find other small- 
scale private sources. But all these 
trees are mere remnants of what was 
once a thriving agricultural industry 
in the Keys and in the southern tip 
of the Florida mainland, where tropi- 
cal weather and the good drainage 
of rocky soil are favorable to this id- 
iosyncratic plant. 
No one knows when the first Key 
lime was planted in the Keys. Citrus 
historians agree that the tree origi- 
nated in Malaysia or eastern India. It 
was first mentioned in Europe in the 
thirteenth century, in Italy. Whether 
Columbus brought seeds of C. auran- 
tifolia with him to Haiti in 1493 is 
a matter of conjecture, but it seems 
probable, since limes were flourishing 
on that island in 1520. Limes then 
spread gradually across the West In- 
dies, westward to Mexico and north- 
ward to the Florida Keys, where trees 
were well established by 1839. 
Primarily a home fruit throughout 
the remainder of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, the lime became a commercial 
crop in the Keys after 1906, when the 
combination of a severe hurricane and 
soil depletion forced Conchs to aban- 
don pineapple culture. The Key lime 
was an ideal replacement since it 
thrives when meagerly fed. Lime pro- 
duction in the Keys peaked about 
1923. Shortly afterward, the hurricane 
of 1926 dealt the Florida lime groves 
a death blow. The groves were never 
restored. It was much easier to exploit 
the same land as residential real estate 
for northern vacationers and retirees 
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