An unusual tree called Jaboticaba

Jabuticaba is one of those fruits that you can't eat just one. I grew up eating these fruits and spent many hours reading under these trees (they have a very small leaf and I like very much its smell). The taste is very sweet, like someone said above, you can put the whole fruit in your mouth and make it explode my pressing it slightly with your tongue. I'd say that the skin is very much like the cherry one. My whole life people said that I have "eyes of jabuticaba", as my iris are big and dark brown.
We also say that the happiest fruit in the world is the jabuticaba. Because it borns attached to the wood (what can also mean penis in portuguese familiar language) and it dies being sucked. Haha, I always think of it when I see jabuticaba
However my favorite fruit is not so known, even for some Brazilians, it's called Bacupari. It has a hard skin, which you need to cut with a knife. The skin also produces a very bitter liquid that we avoid touching and passing on the mouth. The best part is the pulp around its big seed. It is very sweet, I really love the taste

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by isyeye

 

Figs also bear fruit on the tree as well.
I have one in my backyard.

It appears that many trees within the Rosids have fruit that grow right off the stems/trunk...Figs and Jaboticaba are two examples we've seen and I also put two more on my post above: Jackfruit and Cacao (Chocolate)

reply to post by isyeye


Thank you for posting about this tree, I never heard about it. I would also love to try the fruit of this tree, I wonder where you could get some shipped.

Takes 100 years to grow!? Where is an accelerator to speed this plant's growing speed. (Warning, needs a whole bunch of nutrients to do that kind of stunt, say 100 lbs of stone meal.)

reply to post by FreedomCommander


A 100 years isn't true.

See my post on the last page if you want to know about hormone growth stimulators. I mentioned the concentrated chemicals you can order online, but will add that you can feed plants coconut milk, alfalfa meal and kelp which are all loaded with natural PGR's. I use both.

Cloning or grafting almost always brings earlier fruit. In this case grafting is the way to go:

The grafted (Jaboticaba) plant will fruit considerably earlier than a seedling. One may expect a grafted plant to produce fruit within three years, It can take from 8 to 15 years for a seedling to mature into a fruiting tree. It is this very slow growth that has kept this plant from becoming as popular as it deserves to be. Grafting older trees over to a different variety is inadvisable because it is the trunk and inner branches which produce the fruit. One would have to cut the tree back to a one-inch stump in order to change its fruiting nature.
www.crfg.org...

Their commentary is interesting. There are few fruit trees I'm aware of that produce earlier than 3 years. Few shrubs even. Papaya is about the only exception, which isn't quite one as I now read it isn't in fact a tree but rather a "plant" which was my impression from growing some last year without really getting around to reading much about them. Loquat, Miracle Fruit are a couple I can think of that bear just after 3 years. Citrus and most everything at the store take 7+ years to bear unless done properly by grafting onto grafting stock roots. There are more vines out there that produce fruit in shorter time. I even have a pomegranite (a shrub) 3 years old from seed that didn't produce this spring.

FYI: Very few fruits from stores you would want to bother trying to grow from seed, especially when you can always expect to buy the fruits locally anyways. There's a list of reasons behind this, that should be heeded unless perhaps you have a lot of acres and a long time to live. There are some exceptions like blackberries (although the seeds require cold stratification to sprout).

I do grow many things from seeds, mainly all super-rare stuff I have to order from overseas that I have no hope of finding grafted trees even in FLorida other than ordering live trees online for $50. I simply grow too many things to ever be able to afford to buy them all 'properly'.Thanks to the numerous local Latino markets I frequent I even get access to fruits loaded with seeds that often cost about $1 each online (each single seed that is). I even know where to get fresh jackfruits for about $35 that have about 100 seeds in them (for these you have to check asian grocery at the right time of year).


There's most of the seed types I'm currently germinating inside. 100 dishes wasn't enough so I have 100 more on order. It's the only way I can even operate. Virtually everything is fruit / vegetable / edible / medicial / psychoactive or otherwise useful. Virtually everything pictured is perennial, as this time of years theres little point in trying to sprout too many annuals where I'm located. Hardly any of the seeds or their products can be found locally hardly anywhere in the US. This year I'm even skipping digging into my 'traditional vegetable' cache because I don't have the time or room in my yard anymore, with the exception of certain rare peppers as yes peppers are in fact perennials.. My seed collection fills an entire fridge and yes I'm a maniac!

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


thanks for the information! now if only I had years to watch a treee grow..

~ Love is an art

reply to post by isyeye


Hi Isyeye,
I actually have two "Jabuticabeiras" in my garden. The fruit is Jabuticaba (with "u"), and the tree is Jabuticabeira.

A delicious and sweet tropical fruit. Very known and common here in Brazil.
Great to eat, to make juice, jelly, and....

....there's a fantastic Jabuticaba Liquor!

By the way, I'm brazilian rs

Originally posted by missbahia
Jabuticaba is one of those fruits that you can't eat just one. I grew up eating these fruits and spent many hours reading under these trees (they have a very small leaf and I like very much its smell). The taste is very sweet, like someone said above, you can put the whole fruit in your mouth and make it explode my pressing it slightly with your tongue. I'd say that the skin is very much like the cherry one. My whole life people said that I have "eyes of jabuticaba", as my iris are big and dark brown.
We also say that the happiest fruit in the world is the jabuticaba. Because it borns attached to the wood (what can also mean penis in portuguese familiar language) and it dies being sucked. Haha, I always think of it when I see jabuticaba

However my favorite fruit is not so known, even for some Brazilians, it's called Bacupari. It has a hard skin, which you need to cut with a knife. The skin also produces a very bitter liquid that we avoid touching and passing on the mouth. The best part is the pulp around its big seed. It is very sweet, I really love the taste

Bacupari???
Never heard of it here in the Southeast!!

Is it from Bahia?
(bom encontrar uma baiana por aqui rs)

Originally posted by wlord
it always seems to me like brazil is some alien land, there are always some weird fruits and nuts coming out of there I've never even heard of

You know, this happens to us brazilians either. It's a very big country and although we all speak the same language (portuguese) the country's regions have very different people, culture and natural resources. I'm sure I don't know 70% of the north/northeast fruits.

Everything has its own beaty but not everyone can see it.
It's amazing story.

This is a great post, and what a beautiful tree. It reminds me of something from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" or the related films.

Has anyone ever had cashew fruit? It is delicious, and has a taste that is similar to a cashew nut and an apple. The part that many Americans eat - the nut - is actually a seed that grows on the bottom of the cashew fruit. The seed is surrounded by an acidic pod that will cause allergic reactions.

It's so complex, but beautiful, and so delicious.

Thank you for the fascinating post! I'm a big fan of exotic fruits, and wish that there were more of them available in the grocery stores! Whenever you occasionally do find some fresh exotic fruits available in the U.S., they are usually crazy expensive, shriveled, and tasteless, as they are well past their prime !

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Hi IgnoranceIsntBliss,

Wow, you are amazing! What a collection of seeds! That is some serious dedication . Which edible plants/fruits have you had the most success with? Any advice on which seeds to plant indoors that might bear some delicious exotic fruits that are not too difficult to grow within a few years?

reply to post by AscendantBliss


Hey thanks.

Most tropical fruits will grow fine indoors when its cold out while prospering outdoors when its warm in your area. I write this assuming you're not in the semi-tropics / tropics. If you do live in a place such as FLorida decent species / specimens can be found at local Home Debit type hardware stores. The exotics always cost $30+ tho.

Outside of places you can get a hold of exotics locally, if you pay more to order cloned / grafted species specimens virtually everything will produce in a year or two. Theres only a few things I can recall ever reading out of hundreds that wouldn't go within 3 years via cloning. A handful of others that can't be cloned.

From seed papayas and their close cousins produce in a year or 2... a year with growth hormones as aforementioned.

In a seed sprouted 3 year window some others such as Miracle Fruit, Goji Berry, Loquat and Coffee Arabica come to mind. Shrubs in general are better know to produce in a shorter phase than trees. Loquat is actually a tree that I have a choice looking 3 year from seed specimen that fruited a couple months ago for its first season. Shrubs are going to be better for indoors, particularly from seed, as many fruit trees from seed will be monsters by the time they produce (loquat will at about 4' tho).

Finding specimens that actually fruit year round instead of one month per year probably also increase with shrubs / vines. Someone posted on the first page some links to rare fruit lists. I have half of the first list and less than half of the 2nd. Google those names and read the university cultivation specific pages that come up and you'll find several that procude in reasonable time from seeds.

I've gotten to a point that I have enough things going on that 'WAITING' for things to happen is an after thought. If I had only a couple things I could see it being a burden waiting for edible progress, much like I have so many different seeds on constant cycle its irrelevent if one takes 2 days or 2 months. This same overall ordeal is part of my driving force, as even producing level perennials in most cases only go for about a month per year, even in FLorida. If you grow in all containers such as I, and had to manually water a few specimens all year to only get a few months of edible activity, to me promises to become painful.

So my methods have seeds of random assortment constantly sprouting everyday, and fruits of some kind out in the yard always ready to pick and eat. 365.

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Thanks so much for the helpful and fascinating info! You've got me excited about the prospects of growing some interesting and delicious fruits in a relatively short amount of time. I love papaya, and had no idea that it could be harvested so quickly after planting the seeds! Now I also have to do my homework and follow the links you mentioned on the first page to find a good place to purchase cloned or grafted trees as well! Thanks again, IgnoranceIsntBlisss--very cool stuff!