Meyer Lemons...? Two different-looking fruits with the same name.

[CindyJ]

I was excited yesterday when I saw Meyer lemons in my local Fresh Market, and I bought about a dozen. They're beautiful -- about the size and shape of regular lemons, but with shiny skins the color of egg yolks. I haven't yet cut into them, so I can't comment about the inside. This morning I was at Costco, and saw 4-pound boxes of Meyer lemons there, but they looked quite different from the ones I bought yesterday. The ones at Costco were a little larger, more round than oval in shape, and definitely more orange than yellow; in fact, they looked more like small oranges than lemons. Both products came from California. Can anyone explain this discrepancy to me?

[mcf]

It may just be a variation, the same way regular lemons come in various sizes, shapes and colorations.

[small h]

I've seen Meyer lemons that vary in color and shape, just as you say. But they always have a smooth, thin skin, not thickish and bumpy like a "regular" lemon.

[raytamsgv]

Not every tree produces identical lemons. There are Meyer lemon trees everywhere in my community, and there are noticeable variations in appearance and size.

[EWSflash]

Meyer lemons are actually a lemon-orange hybrid.

[Ruth Lafler]

They're not -- no one knows what they're a hybrid of, since they were not formally hybridized -- they were "discovered" in China and brought to the US about 100 years ago. When people say that Meyers are a "cross-between a lemon and an orange" they are speaking descriptively, not literally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_lemon