A farmer is baffled after finding mutant lemons which look like yellow chili peppers growing on his tree.
Erhan Nizamoglu had to taste the fruit before he was sure they were actually lemons and not chili peppers.
Mr Nizamoglu was picking fruit from his lemon trees with pal Hayati Goztasi at his farm in the Silifke district of Turkey’s Mersin Province when he saw the three strange fruit.
Despite being the same colour as the lemons on the same tree, they were shaped exactly like chili peppers.
Mr Nizamoglu picked the strange looking fruit and brought them home where nobody could decide whether they were lemons or chili peppers.
In the end, he decided to taste one and found it had the distinctive bitter citric taste of a lemon.
Mr Nizamoglu said: “After I examined for a while, I realised it was not a pepper but a lemon. I was confused. I tasted it and it was a pepper-looking lemon.
“This is the first time I have ever seen three lemons looking like peppers on a lemon tree.”
In the end, the farmer took the unusual fruit to agricultural expert Durmus Belen who confirmed it was definitely a lemon.
He said such malformed fruit appeared from time to time but added the pepper-shaped lemons were particularly unusual.
The economy of Silifke district depends on agriculture and it produces a wide range of fruit and vegetables, including lemons.
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Story By: Sibel Abdiu, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: AsiaWire
