North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Dr. Ethan Natelson" <natelson@pipeline.com>]

Dear Group,

      At our Southern Fruit Fellowship (SFF) meeting a few months ago, in 
Elizabeth City, NC,  I was chatting with Jim Mercer who mentioned that he 
grew all of his citrus, in Florida, grafted on Severinia.  He has two types 
of Severinia, and prefers his dwarf cultivar as a rootstock over the 
standard, although both work.  He just sent me a package of the Severinia 
fruit in order to generate seedlings to graft with.  These are very small, 
hard, greenish berries.  My question to any Severiniologists out there, is 
how to germinate these.  Do they require stratification or scarification or 
any other manipulation or simply be planted immediately, as we do citrus 
seeds?  It is remarkable that this small shrub, when used as a rootstock 
with citrus, produces a moderate sized and well anchored tree, with a nice 
thick trunk and requiring no support.

                                                             Regards, Ethan