Trivia Time!!

[Paul T]

Howdy All,

A little piece of Trivia......

Did you know that if you leave a lemon for long enough (say, since the beginning of October, just before Yvonne went into Hospital) and then decide to check whether it is useful for lemon and honey tea (as I did tonight)..... the lemon is still perfectly useable, although quite soft to the touch.  Rather than chucking it out I decided to open it despite the softness.  It was lovely and juicy and of excellent flavour.  Now here's the Trivia bit..... the seeds in the lemon are all germinating.  Given it was still intact and not rotting or anything like that, I'm amazed that the seed was germinating.  Some of the shoots were up to 1cm long and green, despite being in a lightless environment inside the lemon.

Pretty cool, huh?  I thought I should share this little bit of trivia with you all, despite the fact you're all probably going "so what".    I am wishing in some ways that I'd left it longer and found out whether those little shoots would have ended up appearing out the side of the lemon after a while.  I'm tempted to plant some of them, but I'm not sure how good they'd be as rootstock for grafting.  I'd imagine the proper rootstock would be better.

I hope you're all having a good evening.

[razvan chisu]

pitty you did not take some pictures.

[Paul T]

I can still take come pics.  There is a neatly cut half, showing the little green shoots emerging from the seeds.  Would you like pics?

[bulborum]

I agree sooooooooooooooooooo with Razvan

and Paul Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

i am most surprised they germinate in this acid environment

Roland

[Paul T]

Pics have been taken, I'll upload them later this evening I hope (if my procrastination doesn't get the better of me!).

[bulborum]

procrastination

sounds as a terrible illness for me 

R

[Paul T]

Roland,

Since my wife passed away I have been even more dreadful than usual for putting things off.  I am absolutely hopeless.  I have so many things that need repotting, but it just never gets done. 

I am at the moment however, uploading the pics from my camera to the laptop, so there is hope that you'll see them tonight rather than tomorrow.

[bulborum]

I know the feeling

I have it after all the plant-shows
maybe here it is the end of all the stress

R

[Anthony Darby]

Some citrus seeds are polyembryonic with at least one embryo being genetically identical to the parent plant. With lemons though, you'll get a lemon tree. I do know that they will germinate if left long enough inside the lemon, but their viability drops off if the seeds dry out.

[Paul T]

Anthony,

Sorry that it was an already known phenomenon.  I'll still post pics for those like me though who are a bit behind and weren't aware of it.

Roland,

Wonders will never cease..... I've managed to prepare some pics to post.    The differences in colour of the flesh are due to different lights.  I took pics with an without a flash, and in different lights to see which turned out best.  These ones were the clearest.

I only noticed when I was preparing the pics that there are already significant radicals as well as the green shoots.  You can actually quite clearly see which way up the lemon was sitting, as all the roots head in the one direction (i.e downwards).  I went back and had another look at the lemon and they're quite obvious, although I didn't even notice them until seeing the pics.

Enjoy.

[Maggi Young]

I find this most interesting  .... great to see the photos of it happening.
 
Next time I find some antique (all in the name of science, of course) foodstuff around the house I will be sure to investigate thoroughly.

[Paul T]

Maggi,

Investigate does not just mean eat..... I thought I should point that out.  At the very least it is hard to photograph it afterwards, as I was requested to do in this case. 

[Maggi Young]

Oh ye of little faith.... I know I have a reputation for being a hungry Horace  - but I am sure I can be trusted to "investigate" something without immediately ingesting it ...... I have a reasonable sense of self-preservation, y'know! 

[Paul T]

Just checking.  Can't be too careful.

[Lesley Cox]

procrastination

sounds as a terrible illness for me  

R

Procrastination just a couple of days ago lost me about 2/3ds of my Gentiana depressa seed.

Continuing with a slightly similar post to Paul's, I knew that Nerine seed, if left to its own devices in a small container or in a paper bag, germinates unseen and becomes a small bulb, with shoot and root. This takes a year of its time until blooming, over seed sown in the ordinary way. Last night I learned that Eucomis seed does the same thing.