Karma Tree

The Karma Tree grows outside a house. It has beautiful orange fruit most months of the year.

It is common to find Karma Fruit on the street, a short way away. The fruit generally has one bite taken out of it, and a mouthful of the fruit on the street nearby.

The thing about the Karma Tree is that the fruit looks like a sweet tangerine, but it’s not. It’s a “mandarin lime” tree, or “rangpur.” The fruit is very sour. Maybe more sour than lemons. Mandarin limes are rare in that town, so people expect the fruit to be sweet.

The tree is named “The Karma Tree” because, if people are polite and ask permission to pick the fruit, we happily caution them about the taste, and invite them to take some. But, if they take the fruit without asking, we don’t have a chance to warn them. A few steps down the road, they discover the taste the hard way.

The fruit of the Karma Tree has its uses. It makes excellent marmalade, is a useful flavoring in cooking, and can make a lemonade-like beverage.

Also, it is a pretty tree. I think that is the original reason it was planted there.