Identification: Mystery Citrus - Identification and General Questions

Hello!

Working in a garden centre I usually find it fairly easy to come across information but this time, it's been a bit tricky so I thought I'd ask for a bit more guidance...

The other day at work I guess a customer decided to dump a very neglected compact(?) variety citrus tree in the parking lot and drive off. I took a look at it and thought "hey, free tree" and decided to bring it home.

The whole tree is about 4' tall, at most, and looks as though it's last prune wasn't very successful or recent. It has an awkward shape and a few broken branches, and a bit of a bald side. I decided to put it in my living room's north facing windows, however the room is lit still really brightly from a south facing window. I know citrus like a lot of sun, if this isn't enough I can perhaps move it closer to the south window.

I've re-potted it mainly based on the plastic pot it was in being brittle and broken, and cleaned up the massive amount of weed growth that was at it's base. It had been left outside for a long while without much attention. It had quite a few spiders in it, but I monitored it over a few days while it was still at my workplace and cleaned it up a little before bringing it home. I've given it a light spray with Safer's Soap too. Some of the leaves were fairly dry and curling in on themselves, but still a normal colour, I trimmed these off; they just looked sad.

It does have a few thorns, about a half inch long, but not many. The leaves are very rich and green, and curl slightly upwards and have a fairly large winged petiole. However the leaves themselves are fairly small, the largest being perhaps 3-4" long. It's very aromatic, and the leaves smell quite lemony.

I've asked a few people at work, and they figure it's probably a lime. However, I did a lot of searching online, and wonder now if it could possibly be a grapefruit? I don't really mind if it ever bears fruit, I just love having a tree in my living room.

Basically, I'm wondering if anyone knows what kind of citrus this is? Whether or not it will bear fruit? Will it stay fairly small? And also, if anyone has some tips on how and when to prune it that would be wonderful. Any other information is always appreciated!

There are a couple of pictures attached, a nice clear shot of a leaf, the whole tree, a thorn, and the base of the trunk.

Thanks in advance =)

 

It's likely you have something that was raised from seed; such trees tend to be thorny as is yours. The picture of the lower trunk suggests there are actually two trees in the container; polyembryonic seed tend to produce multiple seedlings from one seed. If these are indeed seedlings then it may be many years, if ever, before they begin to bear fruit.

The most common supermarket limes are Bearss and key limes. The leaves on your tree(s) do not match the ones of either. Lemons do not have large winged petioles either. As you noted they look more like grapefruit leaves. However there are other varieties of citrus such as Minneola that have winged petioles.

If given proper care they will grow into big trees. From my experience it is futile to try to control size by pruning. Of course it could be that I'm not doing it properly. You may have more success with a combination of top growth pruning and root pruning.

 

Hardy lemon / Yuzu Inchandrin (Citrus junos)? - they have the winged petioles and thorns

 

Thank you for the responses! I hope I can manage to keep it down in size =)