Poncirus trifoliata ‘Flying Dragon’ is the name of a dwarfed version of the bitter orange, or the hardy orange.

As you might guess from its common name, the Flying Dragon doesn’t likely qualify for inclusion in Lee Reich’s Uncommon Fruit because it is not good for eating right off of the plant. Of course Lee believes the black currant is palatable fresh, and there are plenty who would argue that point.

I wasn’t going to include this species as part of this project, but the seeds were handed to me (sourced from JLHudson) and perishable, and it just looks like a darn cool plant to grow.

The only place I really found cultural information for growing the seeds was Plants for a Future, and JLHudson’s catalog. The catalog says “Germinates best in the dark, cover seed well.” and PFaF suggests that germination of seeds follows a pattern similar to many temperature fruit trees, refrigerator-cold for a time, and then out into the warm temperatures.

I ended up with approximately 30 seeds, and I planted about 10 each in three 1 gallon black plastic pots.