Bossy, very nice tree!! Sorry about the deer demolishing your citrus! We live in the country, surrounded by acres of fields and forests, and this area has always had a huge deer population.. They have a way of knowing what goodies you just planted.. They have demolished my gardens, newly planted orchards etc.. and will jump or trample any fence you put up.. sigh.. In the second picture, it looks like your tree has a nutrient deficiency. The leaves have that Christmas tree pattern.. I believe it is chlorosis.. It is a lack of uptakes of nutrients..Can someone correct me if am wrong? I just read about it recently . Let me see if I can find the link..

nulesm Thanks for the picture and comments. My blossoms look exactly like yours and are pretty in their clusters. Before seeing this tree bloom, I didn't pay too much attention to the differences in shapes and sizes of the blossoms on my trees. This NZL's flower petals give the impression of being thicker. The circle of anthers seem to be wider in diameter and shorter than my other trees' blossoms. Now I want to go outside and compare each variety that have blossoms against each other. I just took the blossoms for granted and knew there was a possibility fruit growing. From this experience, I realized the blossoms are just as different as the fruit.

Denise - what is funny is when searching around to see if citrus blossoms produce droplets of nectar like what you describe (we have seen peony buds do it) , apparently about 5 or so years ago, a research study was released that said that the caffeine naturally found in the nectar of both coffee shrubs AND citrus, may have had a beneficial effect to encourage pollinators. They speculate that despite the bitter "taste" (from the insect's perspective), the caffeine in the nectar actually helps pollinators like bees, to "remember" these plants as good sources of nectar by stimulating parts of their little brains (just like what happens in humans). The plants have adapted to produce just enough not to repel the insects but to still supply enough caffeine to be effective to produce the desired brain activity. Here is a lay article about the research - http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2013/03/07/2634/ Here is a copy of the research from NIH - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4521368/ And this is a link to a paper on earlier research (from about 20 years ago) regarding caffeine in citrus flowers - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239445039_Caffeine_in_Citrus_flowers So I think you were on your way to getting the equivalent of a good cup of coffee when you tasted the drops! LOL Steve - am hoping my NZL will do okay through the rest of winter and get over the "February/March" hump!

Steve, curious if you could actually root and separate it instead of having to root it. It looks like it is an individual root that could be excised, then the sucker and root would just need a new pot. I don't have a huge success rate with rooting cuttings, so I always look at air layering or other propagation options. Ken