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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-414
Kaffir Lime
Citrus hystrix
Kaffir Lime is grown for its aromatic double-lobed leaf rather than its juice - the leaf goes fresh or dried into soups, curries and stir-fries, while the rough, bumpy fruit yields only a small volume of very sharp juice and a rind used in curry paste or candied. Growth stops below 13 C, so it needs to be grown in a container and wheeled under cover through any cool season, which also means the leaf harvest never depends on the tree setting fruit. The leaf and its oil double as an insect repellent, used in hair washes and to shed leeches. Many authorities now use the names makrut lime or Thai lime instead, since "kaffir" carries a racial slur in southern Africa.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 5–6
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 6–25 ft
- Mature spread
- 5–12 ft
- Plant spacing
- 6.6–13.1 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- None
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