Australian Finger Lime ( Microcitrus australasica )

Fruit Warehouse | Australian Finger Lime ( Microcitrus australasica ) | The finger lime has recently been popularized as a gourmet bushfood. The fruit juice is acidic and similar to That of a lime. Marmalade and pickles are also made from finger lime. The Finger Lime plant, Citrus australasica (syn. Microcitrus australasica) is a Thorny understorey shrub or small tree of Lowland subtropical rainforest and dry rainforest in the coastal border region of Queensland and New South Wales, Australia. Flowers are white with petals 6-9 mm long.

There is a wide range of different colored variants of finger lime fruit, Including green, yellow, orange, red, purple, black and brown. Finger lime is thought to have the widest range of color variation within any Citrus species. Commercial use of finger lime fruit started in the mid-1990s in boutique marmalades made from wild-harvested fruit. By 2000 the finger lime was being sold in restaurants, Including the export of fresh fruit. The finger lime has recently been grown on a commercial basis in Australia in response to high demand for the fruit.

Research into fruit fly by Dr Andrew Jessop has concluded That Finger Limes are a non-host plant to fruit flies and as Such are not a quarantine risk to importing countries. The CSIRO has also developed Several Citrus hybrids by crossing the finger lime with standard Citrus species.