5:12

I’ll give him this, Edward mused, he spins a good tale. Tail…huh. You’d bloody think a beaver would know a thing or two about tails. And that bit about the flowers. I don’t know whether he’s pulling my leg or he’s really that clueless about things botanical.

The beaver droned on, swinging into a sidebar about leaf drop and poplars.

“My dear beaver,” Edward began in his professorial voice. “Fruit is formed from the fertilized flower. Your young protégé was never going to get any lemons if you continued to … ’nip them in the bud’, shall we say.”

“Really?” the beaver asked earnestly. “I had often wondered what Gareth was going on about. Do you suppose if I had let them go, stink and all, that he would have actually gotten some fruit?” His tone implied a sad mix of regret and genuine curiosity. It was the kind of situation Edward could rarely resist.

“Well. I believe this particular variety of lemon is known as a Meyer lemon. Citrus × meyeri, the Meyer lemon, is a citrus fruit native to China. It is commonly thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange. In 1908,it was introduced to North America by the agricultural explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer. Meyer was an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who had collected a sample of the plant on a visit to China.”

The beaver tuned him out. “I swear that rabbit swallowed an encyclopedia, or spends all of his time surfing Wikepedia. But I’ll take what I can get,” he mumbled to himself. “Three or five more minutes should do, I’d guess.”

“Citrus × meyeri is reasonably hardy and grows well in warm climates. The plants are also fairly vigorous; a tree grown from seed usually begins fruiting in four years, potentially yielding thousands of lemons. Meyer lemons are popular as ornamental plants due to their compact size, hardiness and productivity.”

Yup, definitely Wikipedia. Probably word for word, knowing him. The dumbest bunny I ever met. Come to think of it, the only bunny I ever really met. And boy, do I wish I never had.

“Meyer lemons are highly decorative and suitable for container growing. While trees produce fruit throughout the year, the majority of the crop is harvest-ready in winter…”

But that should just about do it…

“One more point and I suppose I should get on with business …”