Loquat?

I couldn't figure out what was being mixed to make a loquat so I looked it up. Come to find out that nothing is mixed. It's not even a citrus fruit.
Like the kumquat the ending "quat" is a descriptive chinese reference to it's resemblance to an orange.
loquat "reed orange"
kumquat "golden orange"

Citrus Seed Trueness

An interesting note on citrus seeds is that they can and often do produce true to the fruit. One reason for this is that many of them can be pollinated by themselves. Without the need for another tree the seeds have no genetic pollutants.
This is not the case for all citrus however and in these cases you would need two of the same type of citrus growing near each other to increase the chance that the trees grow true to the fruit.
I have successfully grown key limes, kaffir limes, and lemon from seed and they have all grown true as far as I can tell. One reason for this is that orchards usually clump all of one type of citrus together. It would kill production to have them scattered.
I don't know if the kumquats will produce true since the tree had two different orange trees planted right next to it. It might be interesting to see what comes up.

Green Thumbs of the Family

My wife pointed out today that I come by my green thumb honestly. Both of my grandparents have kept gardens for extended periods of their lives and my mom nearly farms on her land.
It's no wonder then that I like to grow whatever I can. Today I visited my grandfather on my father's side and had a wonderful time picking sweet oranges and kumquats. If you haven't already guessed it, I'm going to plant as many kumquat seeds as I can pick out of the fruit. So far that amounts to 3 and I've only eaten one kumquat!