Mexico, Key West, Boston & Palm Springs

(The Mexican/Key Lime is yellow when ripe and about the size of a ping pong ball.)

Every time we walk to our pool, we pass a citrus tree that always seemed to have little fruit on it. For more than a year we've noticed that there were what appeared to be small lime-like looking citrus. However it seemed that they never got big but turned yellow and then fell on the ground and sidewalk. So although we thought it might be a lime tree, since it never seemed to have limes like we were used to and nobody seemed to pick them, we just thought it was some sort of ornamental citrus tree with inedible fruit.

Then a couple of weeks ago when we were at a friend's daughter's birthday party, we noticed that her mother was cutting up these small ping-pong sized yellow citrus. "What are those?," I asked. "Mexican limes," she said. "They go great with the Mexican food I'm making."

And then it dawned on us! Wow! We have a Mexican lime tree right across the street. So this week when I was coming back from the pool and I saw a couple of those little yellow limes, I picked them up. Yup, they're limes all right and delicious. Perfect for fish, in a Corona or for making a Key Lime pie.

Curious, according to this article from Perdue University, we found that "the Mexican lime is native to the Indo-Malayan region. It was unknown in Europe before the Crusades and it is assumed to have been carried to North Africa and the Near East by Arabs and taken by Crusaders from Palestine to Mediterranean Europe. In the mid-13th Century, it was cultivated and well-known in Italy and probably also in France. It was undoubtedly introduced into the Caribbean islands and Mexico by the Spaniards, for it was reportedly commonly grown in Haiti in 1520. It readily became naturalized in the West Indies and Mexico, There is no known record of its arrival in Florida. Dr. Henry Perrine planted limes from Yucatan on Indian Key and possibly elsewhere. In 1839, cultivation of limes in southern Florida was reported to be "increasing". The lime became a common dooryard fruit and by 1883 was being grown commercially on a small scale in Orange and Lake Counties. When pineapple culture was abandoned on the Florida Keys, because of soil depletion and the 1906 hurricane, people began planting limes as a substitute crop for the Keys and the islands off Ft. Myers on the west coast. The fruits were pickled in saltwater and shipped to Boston where they were a popular snack for school children. The little industry flourished especially between 1913 and 1923, but was demolished by the infamous hurricane of 1926. Thereafter, the lime was once again mainly a casual dooryard resource on the Keys and the southern part of the Florida mainland."

"In 1953, George D. Fleming, Jr., proprietor of Key Lime Associates, at Rock Harbor, on Key Largo, was the chief producer of limes. Though he had sold several of his groves, he was developing a new one as part of a "vacation cottage colony". Fearing that this little lime might disappear with lack of demand and the burgeoning development of the Keys, the Upper Florida Keys Chamber of Commerce launched in 1954, and again in 1959 with the help of the Upper Keys Kiwanis Club, an educational campaign to arouse interest and encourage residents to plant the lime and nurseries to propagate the tree for sale."

So here right across the street is our own little Mexican lime tree. A link to Mexico, Key West, & Boston. Guess it is time to get out the reamer.