Yes it is.

The blooms look identical to the blooms on my meyer lemon plant. That may or may not be helpful since I haven't seen any other citrus plants' blooms.

meyer lemon flowers no doubt about it. As for the thicker rind, someone smarter than me will have to help you with that but I imagine it could have something to do with water.

mike

Was that picked immature? I can't really tell based on the photograph but if that's a mature ripe lemon then I'd start checking your trees for HLB (citrus greening).

You have asymmetry and thickened rinds... did you taste it? What was the flavor like?

I'm no expert but I've seen a few pics of fruit from HLB trees and a couple looked similar to that one. It seems unlikely that 4winds sold you a tree with HLB (though it is possible) - more likely that that meyer picked it up from one of your other trees. I'd look for symptoms.

Again, I'm far from an expert, maybe some type of lemon out there with a deficiency gives you asymmetric lemons with thickened rinds but I haven't heard of it yet...

Very doubtful it is HLB (Citrus Greening) as the leaves look just fine. No indication of HLB on the leaves, which is the first evidence of HLB. I would say it was just a weird first fruit. I'd wait until the next crop of fruit and watch to see how that round of fruit matures. If the fruits stay round or roundish, with either no terminal button or a small one, and the skin stays smooth and thin, you've got a Meyer. If not, it could be a Eureka, Lisbon or even a Ponderosa.

Patty S.

I just saw the shot of the full lemon in that gallery, did you see that one Patty? It looks pretty misshapen to me... but you surely know more about HLB than I do...

Odd looking lemon either way... never seen one like it on my trees. Are there mineral deficiencies that cause this? Cultural problems?

The ugliness of the skin can be due to it being a Ponderosa Lemon. I posted about that on the CA forum, if you go to wikipedia you can see a bumpy fruit. It has a few bumps, but is not as bad as the one in the photo. The juice is fine, there is just not much of it and I can't squeeze them myself. Even if you put it on a juice squeezer thingy it won't squeeze. I need a juice man. It's not immature that one was on the tree at least since spring time. In fact, it was kind of oldish, but ponderosa you can keep on the tree for months it says so in wikipedia. But, the grower and the nursery did give me another, so I asked for a eureka, because I don't want two lemons like this. I have very little space. I had to take out a nice rose, just to put in the second tree. Nothing good can be added with sacrifice. San Francisco lots and gardens are often very small. There is an extreme lack of space here.

Yes, I did, redshirt, but this is a VERY young tree, and all kinds of other, more common things can cause fruit to be misshapen. If it was HLB, you'd see very sorry looking leaves, especially on the branch where this fruit was produced. This little lemon tree looks nice and green :-) The thickness of the skin can be caused by other factors, as can be the odd shape. Thick rind is most often caused by too much nitrogen and/or too little phosphorus, which is actually caused by the over abundance of nitrogen, which can cause a lower uptake of phosphorus. I've included a nice fertilizing schedule & chart from Arizona, which is still very applicable for those of us in warmer areas of the Western US, including S. California. Even for me close to the coast. This is for in-ground citrus, and there will be some regional variability to the application timing, and the amount of nitrogen (more for hotter areas, less for cooler areas in general), as well as some adjustments for micronutrients that might be low in your particular area, but overall, I think this chart is very easy to understand.

And, this doesn't look like Ponderosa lemon to me, tropical. They are really, really huge. And they have a rather unique obovoid (pear) shape and are pale yellow. Eurekas can have thick, lumpy rinds, too. As can many Italian lemons. My Eureka lemons have lumpy thicker skin. Lemons of all sorts can stay on the tree and actually keep well, not just the Ponderosa. I even leave my Meyer lemons on the tree longish, since my tree is so prolific, I just can't squeeze enough juice fast enough, even freezing it. Here's a link to one of the best citrus sites out there besides the UC Riverside Citrus Collection site:

Citrus Pages

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fertilizing Citrus in Arizona

I found upon asking that when a lemon is not watered enough, they need a drip line, the lemons look all ugly and deformed with thick skin and putting in a drip will change them back to normal lemons.

But, I was referring to another post I made about a friends lemon tree in which the lemons were too big and lumpy and ugly with very thick thin and little juice.