Plant · P-413

Lime

Citrus aurantiifolia

Lime is a small, thorny citrus tree grown for its acidic fruit, eaten fresh or turned into pickles, marmalades, jams, and juice, with the dried fruit a staple flavouring in Persian cooking and the leaves used as a condiment in Javanese dishes. It flowers and sets fruit almost year-round, giving pollinators an unusually long nectar season for a fruit tree. It is the most cold-tender of the common culinary citrus - growth stops below about 13 C even during the growing season - so where winters bring hard freezes it is usually grown in a container and wheeled under cover for winter.