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A Citrus that Deserves the Limelight: CiClem #10 or Golden Lime





Seedlings in February 2023



Hybrid vigor: Seedling in September 2023 from seed collected November 2022

From 1996-2000, my family and I lived in Augusta, GA. Although I had been interested in citrus before then, it was during this time that I really tried to take my hobby to the next leve. Unfortunately, at this time there wasn't a lot of information available in books, which tended to focus on Florida and California. The Internet was still in its infancy, and social media hadn't been invented. Much of my initial knowledge of citrus came from Mike's catalog, and from books published many years before, such as The Citrus Industry, which detailed many of the early crosses that were made by USDA researcher Walter Swingle and others in the early years of the 20th Century.

From the lost and found file: many years ago, my friend Mike Kirk owned a fantastic mail order nursery that featured cold hardy citrus. I bought quite a lot of things from him, some of which I barely knew at the time. For some years my family and I lived in Augusta, GA, and I planted citrus at the house we owned.

I bought whatever I could get my hands on from Mike, including Clem x Yuzu, Keraji, Nippon orangequat - and, apparently, CiClem #10. Most of these I planted at our house in Augusta.

A couple of years after we moved away from Augusta, I came across more research on cold hardy citrus, especially on the work by Dr. John Brown of Houston, TX, who was a successful breeder of cold hardy hybrids. It was Dr. Brown who developed Clem x Yuzu, SanCitChang, and many others. I was always intrigued by his many hybrids between Clementine and Trifoliate, which he called CiClem. I never could find any for sale, though (or so I thought!).
In the fall of 2022 on a visit to Augusta I went by my old house and was able to pick a few fruit from a large citrus tree I had planted more than 20 years ago. I wasn’t at first sure of what it was other than that it was clearly a Trifoliate hybrid of some kind.
Subsequent study showed me that many years ago I got CiClem #10 from Mike Kirk and had planted it in Augusta. I planted the seeds from the fruit I picked in November 2022 and I’m happy to report that I got many to germinate. The fruit is very good for a Trifoliate hybrid - sour, but no off flavors. Dr. Brown called it “Golden Lime.”

CiClem #10 is a large tree, ultimately to 20 feet tall or taller, with narrow trifoliate leaves. It appears to be mostly evergreen in winter. Fruit are borne on the branch tips (typical of mandarins). The fruit are fairly small, pyriform, and yellow, resembling a smaller version of Swingle citrumelo. Inside, the fruit have eight or nine sections, each with one or more seeds, making it a seedy fruit. The interior is a pleasant golden yellow, with no greenish cast present as is the case with some Citrange and Citrumelo hybrids. The juice has a clean, sour taste that when diluted 1:1 makes an excellent lime substitute.

Because it is a 50-50 Trifoliate hybrid with Clementine, CiClem #10 should be very hardy to cold, probably to 5F or lower. The tree in Augusta has grown without any apparent care for more than 25 years. I would rate it to Zone 7b.

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