I know how silly this may sound, yet I have an addiction to Large Iced-tea from Sonic. Usually, upon completion, I had been dumping the remaining ice and lemon wedges into the flower bed nearby. This year, I noticed what was a lemon tree growing in the flower bed. I moved it into a pot, and the thing is in the 10 foot range a year later. It hasn't produced any fruit yet, which hinders my identifying of it. It's very thorny, and obviously, quite tall. Is there anyone who can help by the photos to help me identify? I am dying to know exactly what I have here so I can better tend to it. Please help if you can.....
A store bought lemon is likely to be either the Eureka or Lisbon variety. The leaves of Eureka are relatively less pointed then those of Lisbon (though it's difficult to see in my trees). Eureka, unlike Lisbon, is relatively thornless. Your tree is quite thorny but that can be expected from a young seedling tree. Sorry I can't give you a definitive answer.
Unless particular cultivar names are considered applicable to seed strains in this species, your unselected seedling will be just that - a seedling lemon tree with no cultivar name. Named forms of fruit trees are usually cloned via grafting or raising from cuttings, in order to assure that the propagule is truly the same exact variety. Being fractions of the mother plant stuck onto the roots of another plant, or induced to form their own roots these pieces have the sexual maturity (and often the bushy growth) of the branches they came from. Since yours is a genetically distinct, new individual it must reach sexual maturity before flowering. And it has the growth habit of a seedling (seed-raised) tree. Bushy branches with flowers and fruit will come when it gets old enough.
Lemon seed possesses a degree of polyembryony in which a seed can potentially contain both zygotic and nucellar embryos. The latter will produce clonal copies of the parent. In addition nucellar embryos usually outnumber and outlive the sexual ones.
