Kingdom Plantae Family Rutaceae Higher classification Citrus | Order Sapindales Genus Citrus Rank Species | |
Similar Yuzuquat, Florentine citron, Procimequat, Moroccan citron, Citrus warburgiana | ||
Citrus longispina (winged lime, blacktwig lime, or megacarpa papeda) is an unusual sweet lime-like citrus in Citrus subg. Papeda.
It is called Tai la mi san in Chinese, Taramisan in Japanese and Tanisan or Talamisan in the Philippines.
Description
Citrus longispina is a very beautiful citrus tree, which has striking colors, with a background of dark colored twigs, pale green leaves and pale yellow fruit. Twigs are unusually dark brown, almost black, hence the name "blacktwig". The tree can reach eight feet in height, and often has a spreading bushy appearance. Twigs are commonly long and bent down by the heavy fruit load.
Fruits comes in clusters and the flesh has a fair amount of natural sugar and a lime flavor. However it still lacks the intensity of acid found in more common citrus fruits, so some people might find it insipid. Fruit shape is globose, about eight cm. in diameter. The tree has lots of long and strong thorns, as implicated from the botanical name, longi-spina.