Is a lime a baby lemon?

I have always thought that a lime was actually an immature lemon. Well I was wrong.

I did a little investigation because we have 2 Lime trees and 2 Key Lime trees in our yard and when the limes get ripe they turn yellow and fall off the trees. The yellow limes do not look like the lemons I know so I searched on the web and discovered the following.

Limes and Lemons are 2 different trees from the citrus family.

This is the same as saying that a Golden Delicious apple and a Red Delicious apple are from the apple family. We do not expect a Golden Delicious apple to turn into a Red Delicious apple when it matures and so we should not expect a Lime to turn into a Lemon when it matures.

So what are the differences? Well a Lime is bitter/sweet while a lemon is sour. A Lemon has more citrus oil in the outer skin than a Lime.

How do you tell the difference when the fruits are young? Well a Lime is denser than a Lemon. Just drop the fruit into a glass of water. If the fruit sinks then it is a lime. A Lemon will float.

If you want to investigate more why not start with this link.