Ventura Lemandarin

The grower known as Virginia Fruit Grower describes Ventura Lemandarin as a chance seedling from Taiwanica fruit seed and reports that the pollen parent may have been Satsuma or Keraji. A Coastal Virginia interview also describes a seedling found in a community pot and calls the hybrid likely Taiwanica × Keraji. The exact parentage, germination date, and selection date are not established.^{⁠[17]⁠[11]}

The presenter describes yellowish-orange, bumpy-rinded fruit ripening around Halloween, with an aromatic peel that is very easy to remove and a lemon–mandarin flavor. A January 2020 update reports one additional fruit at 13.3 °Brix, 108 g, about 2¾ inches in diameter, and 28 seeds; sample provenance, maturity, and measurement method are unstated. These measurements describe one reported fruit, not a variety average.^{⁠[17]⁠[9]}

Cold reports concern different plants and conditions. A 2014 post attributes to an unnamed breeder the death of an own-root seedling in an event stated as 5.5 °F, while a nearby Flying Dragon graft about four feet high reportedly defoliated and had branch dieback but was recovering. Video captions give a different, uncertain temperature for an own-root event. A 2017 table lists leaf retention after a reported 21 °F drop. In a separate Czech test, an identity-uncertain Flying Dragon-grafted seedling died to the graft union after an outdoor winter; the remote probe reached −12 °C, while the author says his site was usually about 2 °C warmer. These are source-specific reports, not a verified cultivar-wide minimum.^{⁠[9]⁠[16]⁠[21]⁠[17]}

Virginia Fruit Grower reports sharing seed with a friend in Kyiv around 2010 and says descendants were transferred to Nikitsky Botanical Garden in Crimea during 2012–2013. A 2025 interview also reports that seed was grown and established at Nikitsky but gives no exact transfer date.^{⁠[17]⁠[11]}