African lemon

$150.00

The Cape Rough Skinned Lemon is the oldest variety of lemon in South Africa. It was named for its bumpy, uneven thick skinned yellow fruit, and is sweeter than other lemon varieties. The fruit is oval, and 7 to 12cm in length. The tree has an upright habit with a roundish crown, growing to an average 3 to 6m in height, and has sharp thorns on the branches. It has dense foliage, and the leaves are oval shaped, and a dark, slightly glossy green. Cape rough-skin lemon trees were brought to South Africa from the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, during the 17th century, and planted in the Cape Town gardens of Jan van Riebeeck, a Dutch Colonial administrator. These gardens were planted with many fruits and vegetables, for European traders circumnavigating Africa, to do trade in the East. The traders would stop at the Cape to rest, and have fresh food from these gardens. Citrus fruit (lemons and oranges) were popular with the sailors, because their high vitamin C content was useful for combating scurvy, a disease that resulted from a lack of vitamin C, due to shortage of fresh food available on long distance sea journeys.