Yes, Coca Cola and some others (the Seminole nation, et al.) grew lemons for juice and peel oil for quite a while, until the series of major freezes in the '70s and '80s wipe them out. The two primary varieties were 'Bearss' and 'Avon'. Speaking of 'Bearss', here's what I recently posted to another forum: It occurs to me that this forum might be interested in an item of long-term confusion among citrus hobbyists. The issue of what is called "Bearss." 'Bearss' lime is a selection of 'Tahiti' (a.k.a. "Persian") lime, grown to a small extent commercially in California, and when you buy a plant from a California or Arizona nursery with the name "Bearss" associated with the plant, you will nearly always get this lime variety. In this case, it is correctly pronounced "beers," as in what you would call two Coors Lights and a Budweiser. 'Bearss' lemon is a true lemon (C. limon) historically grown commercially in Florida, apparently originally from Sicily. It proved to be better adapted to Florida's climate than Eureka or Lisbon, which are the more popular Western varieties. If you see a tree with the name "Bearss" associated with it in Florida, it will nearly always be this lemon. And in this case, it is pronounced "bears," as in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but the final "s" is hissed (unvoiced) rather than a "z" sound. The two have nothing to do with each other, and the origins of their names seem to be independent as well. So it's an odd bit of citrus nomenclatural history.

Wow, that's very interesting John. My Meyer lemons turn so yellow, they start to turn orangish yellow if I leave them on the tree too long. I don't think we always have that much temp variation during the day - 30 degrees - as we're pretty close to the coast. Like today, for instance. Highs 69, lows 57. All my lemons, Meyer and either Eureka or Ponderosa (determination is still not made), yellow up really well for me. I might get that sort of temp variation in the winter, but not so much spring/fall and even summer. And why is the mango a clue?? Patty S.

I would want them but I don't think I'd be able to make it up that way for at least a week. I'm in Beaverton

Flofi, Lukas nursery is a good place to shop for unusual plants. Citrus is not the easy care plant that we had few years ago, we have greening now, it is less in the sour citrus like lemons or limes. I have a Meyer lemon and produced so much fruit for a long period of time, that everyone who likes lemons got it from me, red lime is also very productive, the dwarf lime from Lukas not so much, it has fruits now but for a quite a while I had to spray to get the tree back in shape. The trees today are all covered with fruits, in the back a fig, on the right the Meyer lemon, on the left a white nectarine and in the very front the red lime that is about 3 ft tall, on purpose I keep it short and in the back about 6 ft is the dwarf lime. Silvia