Brushing the scale from the oranges will be adequate before consumption. Most citrus are peeled before they are eaten, (kumquats are an exception). The scale will only be on the outside of the orange. There are a couple of problems that scale can cause, (certainly not the only problems scale can introduce). 1. Scale is a known vector for some of the citrus pathogens. 2. Scale infestation can really damage citrus trees, by preventing sap from reaching the terminal buds of the branches, and inhibiting growth. The best thing you can do it try to prevent scale from infesting your trees to begin with. There are numerous sprays that can be used, or you can manually remove the scale by rubbing it off. good luck!

Thanks for all the responses! Ok so just to clear up and provide some more information..... I wouldn't say the tree is young since I've had it for about 18 years. It's about 4 feet tall and about three feet wide. It has set as many as 12 lemons (typically 8-10) each year. It is healthy and has plenty of leaves and strong growth each summer outdoors. As for "perfect" flowers, I have always seen only some with the female parts and others without the styles, for as long as the tree has flowered. So I assumed that pollination would help. Having said that, the ratio of "allegedly" male to female flowers was always about 50/50, so not really an issue. The only reason I posted now, after several years of success, is that there is but one lonely "female (or "perfect") blossom, and the rest (about 26-30) have only the pollen-bearing stamens, but no styles. There are about 20 more unopened flowers, so it remains to be seen what they will look like. So after reading all you replies, it seems my tree is, for some reason, not producing flowers as they should be. Could it be environmental, even though the tree grows well and has for many years? Could it be a genetic quirk? At least my sunroom smells great right now! Thanks again to all.

In the real world, seeds would sprout where a fruit had fallen...unless Steve ate the fruit and spit the seed out somewhere else :>) With that as a premise, would it make sense to squeeze a little of the fruit juice on the paper towel? It might help retard the mold but would certainly ferment...not sure that would be a bad thing so long as you kept the towel moist with water too. When I juice my Ponderosa lemons, I try to put the peel, pulp, and seeds back under some of my citrus. The seeds sprout like crazy just thrown out on the ground. That's why I wound up with so many Ponderosa trees. They came up volunteer and I hated to just pull them up, so I transplanted them once they grew out some. I don't think this is common even for calamondins but my calamondin fruit overwintered last year since we had a really mild winter. Now the remaining ripe...actually over-ripe fruit, still on the tree, have seeds inside the fruit that have sprouted a root and stalk with a little green leaf tip. I was surprised there was enough light inside the fruit for chlorophyll development but....calamondin peel is really thin and the sprouts are sure enough green.

Sultry, you and me both, LOTP’s scent is crazy good (far stronger and yummier than Julia Child’s). One whiff and she went from ‘new and interesting’ to MUST obtain immediately! Mine came bare root from Regan last week. I’m guessing she is no more than medium floribunda height, maybe 3.5 ft in our warmer zones. This video ARS touring with Christian Bedard on Weeks’ trials has been posted many times. https://youtu.be/DBV0ql3lOQI Toward the end of video, Chistian mentions they had a tour group from Japan, and they found one particular extremely fragrant 2019 introduction to be THE most memorable rose. That’s most certainly Life of the Party, in one of its paler phases. The other two 2019 introductions shown correspond to Arctic Blue and All Dressed Up.