Origins of lemons are a puzzle claims New Scientist 17 April 1999 p.117 in answer to a reader’s question about the usefulness of a fruit as sour and inedible as lemons. Various authorities on cultivated plants were contacted who advised there are no existing wild relative of lemons, oranges or limes and no evidence of a wild ancestor. Horticulturalists believe citrus trees originally grew in a region extending from Iran, through India and into China. No evolutionist presently claims to know the origin of citrus trees.
Editorial Comment: Cultivated plants are usually claimed to be derived from wild plants that evolved characteristics which primitive human beings stumbled across by chance and found to be useful for food, shelter or clothing. A better explanation is that such plants were made by God to be cultivated from the beginning by humans and later seeds, seedlings and cuttings were taken aboard Noah’s ark, then replanted where people first settled after the flood in the region now called Iran. (Ref. citrus, fruit, cultivation, plants)