Buddha’s Hand:
The other yellow citrus

Who knows why people choose the plants they do? The answer is often obvious -- size or shape, for instance, or fragrance or fruit. But sometimes gardeners simply can’t explain their preferences. I guess one woman’s begonia is another woman’s rhododendron.

The first time I saw a picture of a citrus fruit called Buddha’s hand, I was drawn to it. I hadn’t seen a living specimen so I had no idea what the tree looked like, but certainly the fruit wasn’t going to win any beauty contests. It looked like a bright yellow arthritic human hand with a dozen long fingers branching down from a disfigured palm.

But I’m a fool for all things citrus and, blinded by love, I was willing to overlook appearances. The article accompanying the photograph described a variety of exotic fruit grown more as a curiosity than for practical reasons. It said the Buddha’s hand has very little pulp, but that its aromatic rind could be grated and added to dishes such as cooked fish.

That was enough for me. A couple of years later, while on a leisurely nursery crawl with friends, I found a lone Buddha’s hand, which looked almost exactly like a lemon tree.
It was September, a little too early for tree-planting. While awaiting cooler temperatures, I researched my new acquisition. Where had it come from? Who had cultivated it and why?
Buddha’s hand is one of several variations of citron, a mid-sized to large citrus fruit. Unlike normal citrons, which tend to resemble large, rough-skinned lemons, it is easily distinguished by its squid-like shape. Historically, it has been candied as a dessert and prescribed as a stimulant, expectorant, and tonic in non-traditional medicine.

The citron’s origins may date to 4000 B.C., judging from seeds found in Mesopotamian excavations. Alexander the Great’s soldiers probably carried the citron to the Mediterranean area around 300 B.C. Eventually, Buddhist monks apparently took it to China, where it developed a variation with five lobes and a freaky resemblance to a human hand. (Its botanical name is var sarcodactyla. Isn’t that Latin for “dead fingers”?)

Both the Chinese and the Japanese have long used the whole citron to perfume rooms and clothing and to celebrate New Year’s, because it is believed to bestow good fortune on a household.

That sounded promising. I looked around for the best spot to put my new acquisition. I knew that citrus trees need a sunny spot with good drainage and protection from frost. Although I usually sprayed my Meyer lemon trees with Cloud Cover on cold nights, I nearly lost one a few years ago when an unexpected frost left it looking like a pile of kelp. In the spring, however, it rose again, more vigorous than before.

Assuming I would have the same good luck with Buddha’s hand, I planted the sapling in October and was soon rewarded with a smattering of white lemon-scented blossoms. The few that survived battering by early rains eventually produced five small, deep yellow Buddha’s hands. I lopped off a couple of fingers and took a whiff. Hmmm. If it were a wine, I’d describe that aroma as predominantly high citrus notes, underscored with a whiff of dank earth.
In spring, the tree took off like a teenager on steroids, shooting up 12-foot-long branches bearing long, extremely thorns. The profuse, aromatic blossoms that appeared in the fall evolved into fruit, but most of them remained round. At first they resembled limes, then grapefruit but, as the ever-plumper bulbs looked an awful lot like green pomelos.
Finally, I faced the fact that something was terribly, terribly wrong with this picture. I e-mailed Four Winds Growers and received a response from someone named Toby.
“You have a rootstock sucker that is taking over your tree.  Cut off the branches that are making the round fruit and any growth from below the graft. The rootstock will devour all the energy and not allow the Buddha’s hand to grow or make fruit if left unchecked,” he wrote.

Ruh-roh. I had not been aware that Buddha’s hand scions are routinely grafted onto another citrus rootstock.

How I could tell what was rootstock and what wasn’t?

“You should be able to differentiate the foliage,” my pen pal explained. “The suckers will always originate from below the Buddha’s hand.  The really tall portion may be rootstock still, because the Buddha’s usually would not be that tall in this length of time.”
“Is it okay to cut it way, way back?” I asked.

“Scary how fast that rootstock can grow!. Better to cut back the suckers now than wait another minute,” wrote Toby, who was obviously starting to panic.

This story does not have a happy ending – at least not yet. I did slash off a lot of rootstock, but the remaining stump was so ugly that I didn’t bother protecting it during the winter, even though it still had Buddha’s hands on the lowest branches.

A fruit that isn’t pretty to begin with looks even worse when frozen.
My only hope is that the alleged good fortune bestowed by the Buddha’s hand will save my tree.