So I just found out that apparently, a lemon isn't naturally occurring and is a hybrid by cross breeding a bitter orange and a citron, which means life never gave us lemons; we invented them all by ourselves!!
I’m probably not saying this correctly, but the bananas we eat all descend from the same tree, or maybe even one single banana that came out delicious lol
e: yeah I was mistaken, but it’s still interesting - all the bananas we eat today are clones of one another to preserve the taste. As in they graft the branches from one tree to the next to make sure the fruit tastes good and doesn’t mutate too much. This is true of apples too apparently.
Citrus hybrids are also a natural occurrence though, outside of specific "new" varieties crossed recently we can't really say whether the initial hybridization events millennia ago were natural or by human intention.
TIL that pomelos are a mother citrus! I basically never see them in stores around me so they’re not one I recognize or think about. Honestly assumed they were the hybrid- pomelo sounds like the kind of name you get from mashing two other fruit names together 😅
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u/Luxord13 1d ago
So I just found out that apparently, a lemon isn't naturally occurring and is a hybrid by cross breeding a bitter orange and a citron, which means life never gave us lemons; we invented them all by ourselves!!