Fruit
Ponderosa
B tier
Ponderosa is a huge, thick-skinned novelty lemon (likely pomelo hybrid influence) with seedy flesh and coarse acid—more garden curiosity than commercial juice standard. Fruit can weigh far more than Eureka. Peel is thick for candying experiments; juice is lemony but not refined. Growers gift oversized fruit; cooks candy peel and use juice where rough lemon acid works. Not a bartender’s precision lemon. Fun, not foundational.
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History
Ponderosa lemon was popularised in the US as a giant novelty citrus.
Home orchardists kept Ponderosa for ornamental huge fruit.
Ponderosa stayed a curiosity cultivar outside mainstream grocery.