Not in Islamorada! They use real key limes for pie. The shrubs grow like weeds there! Fishing is great too. Actually, the best!
You mean local.
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Oddly enough, not likely!
Last time I was in the FL Keys (~ 5 years ago) we stopped at one of the long-time roadside restaurants that is known for their key lime pie, and I asked about the source of their limes (wanting to buy some locally grown fruit).
They said their last local source lost too many trees in a hurricane a number years ago and shut down their operation, so now they use Mexican limes imported from Mexico instead. Though the proprietor said she has an old key lime tree at home that she uses for her own uses, there just wasn’t any local source that was able to keep up with their needs during tourist season. I imagine it’s similar for most places in the Keys.
… of which there are several cultivars. There is the small-fruited thorned cultivar, a generic cultivar, and the so-called sweet lime, and likely more but without the name “Mexican” attached. Note that the Spanish grew limes in central America centuries before Swingle introduced them to FL.
Not the same. I had a key lime bush in RI look up my key lime pie on this site.
I am Dutch, and if never seen the word “Kei” be used to describe something as tropical. It’s used to emphasize some-one is good at something. Or used to describe a stone.
Do you maybe have a source for “kei” meaning tropical in the Dutch language?
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Check the usage centuries ago.
For what it’s worth, the Oxford English Dictionary holds that the “key” in “key lime” refers to “a low-lying island or reef, esp. in the Caribbean or off the south coast of Florida,” and gives the etymology for “key” in that sense as a variant spelling of “cay”, derived from the sixteenth-century Spanish cayo, meaning “shoal, rock, barrier reef.” The origin of cayo is uncertain but the OED speculates that it may be the same as the French quai, or alternatively that it may have derived from an Antillean loan word.
They’re word experts, not fruit experts, though.
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I did. And couldn’t find anything. That’s why i asked you for a source…
Why do you think “kei” means tropical in Dutch (or used to mean)? Or where did you read that. I’m curious
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@JinMA
Yes. The FL “key” and the Dutch "“kei” are of different origin. The name “kei lime” existed long before Swingle introduced limes to FL. Further, the British mis-transliterated “kei lime” to “key lime” in the eastern hemisphere. Then, due to the location of plantings the name “key lime” also arose in FL but not for the same cultivar - nor even the same subspecies.
Histories of the origins of fruits in various parts of the world.
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Back to the original topic, I sent CCPP an inquiry about the reference to “wood pocket” in the description of the Giant Key Lime, and Rock Christiano responded with a link to this lengthy summary of the disease, which is very informative and didn’t come up in my googling earlier:
http://ecoport.org/ep?SearchType=earticleView&earticleId=731&page=-2
He also said he’s never seen any sign of wood pocket on their Giant Key Lime specimen, but has seen it on some of the Tahitian limes, so he’s not sure where that note in the database came from.
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Wait I’d missed this part. Are you saying that “kei lime” didn’t refer to Citrus x aurantiifolia? What was the kei lime then? Because Citrus x aurantiifolia is definitely the main lime you find planted in the Florida Keys.
No kidding!
You originally seemed to be saying that key lime pie doesn’t usually use Citrus x aurantifolia (which is true everywhere except the Florida Keys), not that “key lime” and “kei lime” don’t refer to the same subspecies. I’m re-reading your posts and that is what it seems like you meant.
So @Richard can you please state clearly and without snark, what subspecies was kei lime if it wasn’t Citrus x aurantifolia (the lime known as key lime in the Florida Keys)?
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I think it’s only fair @Richard for you to clarify what you meant after derailing this thread with what I’ll admit is a very interesting tangent. So please correct any misunderstanding in this summary:
- Most restaurants that serve key lime pie use Tahitian limes (at least outside the FL Keys)
- The name “key lime” is used in the Florida Keys to refer to Citrus x aurantifolia, and was likely adopted due to a false association made at the time between the Dutch word “kei” and the English “key/cay” for island, the latter of which was derived from Spanish “cayo” rather than the Dutch word
- “Kei” was already in use by the Dutch to refer to a different type of lime (not yet specified in this thread and nothing authoritative came up in google)
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Do you mean this source?
The Origins of Fruits, Fruit Growing, and Fruit Breeding
Or another one?
No matter where i search. I can’t find any source for “kei” meaning tropical in Dutch. Or your claimed history in the naming of the key lime.
I think you made a mistake. Or maybe the source your quoting is mistaken. But I’m 99+% sure. “Kei” never meant tropical in the Dutch language.
Please prove me wrong though. It’s always nice to learn something new 
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So you’re really choosing to have this condescending and vague response be your last contribution to this conversation you started and then never clarified? If you were mistaken, then that’s fine, but if you were not mistaken and you can educate us on a bit of lime history that would be great! This earlier post comes real close, but leaves out one crucial detail (scientific names for these two different types of lime):
This version of the history of Florida-grown key limes is contrary to the way it’s described in most sources I can find. Wikipedia’s version, which cites a history book I cannot verify easily says this:
In California in the late 19th century, “Mexican” limes were more highly valued than lemons; however, in Florida, they were generally considered weeds. Then, in 1894–95, the Great Freeze destroyed the Florida lemon groves, and farmers replanted Mexican limes instead; they soon became known as the Florida Key Lime, a “beloved regional crop”. But when the 1926 Miami hurricane ripped them up, they were replanted with the hardier, thornless Persian limes.
Are you claiming that Floridians now call locally-grown Persian limes “key limes”? Because if that’s what you’re claiming it’s patently false. If anything, most south Floridians bemoan the lack of commercially available “real key limes,” by which they mean Citrus aurantiifolia (Christm.) Swingle, the locally “naturalized” lime in south Florida and the Florida Keys, as noted in this info sheet from the Forest Service:
That is the species(/hybrid?) that everyone in the Florida Keys calls “key lime” and that’s the one that has been traditionally used there to make “key lime pie.”
Most key lime pies made anywhere else use Tahitian/Persian limes, though.
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Here is an interesting fact in the Khoekhoe language ‘Kei’ means ‘water’
In Africa there is the ‘Great Kei River’, which means ‘Great water River’
There is the ‘Kei’ apple which is found growing at the ‘Great Kei River’ area
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Swincher, my post was written in about 2010? Not exactly sure. I had a Key Lime tree (shrub really) from the Florida Keys. The real, tiny yellow limes. That is the lime you use to make real “key lime” Pie. I made sure to take a picture of the tree, etal. You can also buy Key Lime juice in the supermarkets in America. Tahitian limes are much larger. Key limes when cut in half are about the diameter of a quarter. Key is used in the name because the islands are called Keys. No Dutch origin there.
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