Native Plants
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
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Thursday - May 06, 2010
From: Nacogdoches, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: Plant identification
Answered by: Nan Hampton
QUESTION:
My neighbor has a few trees in his pasture that his horses love to eat the fruit off of. The fruit looks like a lemon but smaller and has lots of seeds inside of it. The trees have very long thorns on them also. Can you help me to identify what these trees are?ANSWER:
This sounds like Poncirus trifoliata (hardy orange) a native of China and Korea. It is also called trifoliate orange. It is very hardy, surviving temperatures near 0 degrees F. It is on the TexasInvasives.org list of invasive plants. If this isn't the tree you have seen in your neighbor's pasture, please send us photos and we will do our best to identify it. Visit Mr. Smarty Plants' Plant Identification page to see the instructions for submitting photos. You didn't ask, but it is listed as mildly toxic by the North Carolina Poisonous Plants Database but is not included in the ASPCA's Toxic and Non-Toxic Plant List—Horses.
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