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Tropcial Fruit
All fruit (meaning the ovary of a plant, we include legumes here) plants that are tropical or sub-tropical in climate preference. We like to think of these plants collectively as the "Frankly-Too-Awesome" group.
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Anacardium occidentale - Cashew Type of Plant: Anacardium occidentale is the famous cashew "nut". Although the cashew is actually a fruit, above the seed is a psuedo-fruit which is much like an apple in appearance. |
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Annona cherimola - Cherimoya Type of Plant: Small tree, slightly cold tolerant. Produces fruit in the winter in warm places. |
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Annona muricata- Soursop Type of Plant: Small to medium trees from the topics/sub-tropics. Fruit are quite large, up to 1kg+, slightly sour. |
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Annona squamosa- Sugar Apple Type of Plant: Small tree somewhat cold tolerant. Fruit are considered one of the best fruit species, easy to eat and break open with the hand. Used in drinks, baking and as a table fruit. |
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Carica papaya - Papaya Type of Plant: Papaya is a heat loving plant that prefers not to remain wet at ground level. This often single stemmed tree can produce fruit in under 1 year from sowing the seeds. |
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Type of Plant: Cereus hexagonus plants are exceptional landscape cactus growing very tall, and in time very wide. |
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Type of Plant: Cereus jamacaru is a very water tolerant species surviving even the typhoon rains of Taiwan! Large white night blossoms make this a great attraction in the dark as well. |
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Type of Plant: Cereus peruvianus are grown both as landscape plants and also as smaller ornamentals as this species has many cultivars and varieties. |
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Cocos nucifera - Coconut Type of Plant: The coconut palm is a classic tropical beach plant as it is very salt tolerant and strong against winds. With edible fruit used by many for cooking, drinking or just eating raw. The left over fruit is also shredded into an amazing soil like substrate, coco coir. |
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Durio zibethinus - Durian Type of Plant: Durian, the king of fruits! This species only grows in super tropical areas, it even struggles here in extreme south tropical Taiwan. Best bet is temps never below 15C, even rare cold snaps. This large spiky fruit is loved or hated, it is very creamy and sweet with a strong odor! |
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Euphoria longan - Longan Type of Plant: Longan is Lycheeˇ¦s little cousin in the fruit world. The sweet juicy fruit is revealed form under the peeled off skin. These trees become fairly large with time and can produce quite a lot of fruit. Fruit is also dried and eaten or used in cooking. |
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Garcinia mangostana - Mangosteen Type of Plant: Mangosteen is a self fertile plant which basically just clones itself. There is no genetic diversity which makes selection really easy! A purple skinned fruit, the inside pulp is eaten and considered to be one of the best fruit in existence. |
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Hylocereus undatus - Dragon Fruit Type of Plant: Dragon fruit is from Mexico and has been grown in Asia for a long time now as a commercial fruit. Now becoming more popular in other areas, this fruit has started seeing lots of commercial breeding. Hylocereus undatus is a tropical vine cactus also used for a cactus grafting stock. |
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Litchi chinensis - Lychee Type of Plant: Lychee is another one of the best fruits on earth! It is about the size of a ping pong ball with smooth to rough skin. Newer cultivars from Asia have fruit flesh up to 1 inch thick from seed to skin! This is a very juicy and sweet fruit, simply addictive. |
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Luffa cylindrica - Loofa Sponge Type of Plant: How many plants can claim use as a food with the fruit, a vegetable with the leaves/new growth and an actual effective sponge with the dried fruit all in less than 3 months? This plant is an excellent vegetable dish with the fresh growth and the dried fruit is an amazing sponge for washing the house and body! |
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Mangifera indica - Mango Type of Plant: Mango is a worldwide favorite. used in cooking, drinks, candies etc but most often enjoyed as a fresh fruit. This tree can grow quite large, and is especially great in that it can tolerate drought and it does not require a lot of fertilizers to grow well. |
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Morinda citrifolia - Noni Type of Plant: The noni is a tropical fruit that is incredibly healthy. Used as a fresh table fruit, or in foods and treats it is a tropical tree of medium size. |
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Mucuna pruriens - Velvet Bean Type of Plant: Mucuna pruriens, also known as cowitch, has a black velvet-like fuzz on the outside of the bean, which can cause skin irritation. The outer pod thus is not eaten, but the beans inside are fair game! |
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Myrtillocactus geometrizans - Blue Myrtle Type of Plant: Myrtillocactus geometrizans is a lovely cactus of many uses. It has many varieties, most interesting perhaps being the breast cactus. The fruit are very yummy and sold at markets in Mexico and the cactus itself is a mainstay in cactus grafting stocks. |
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Pachira aquatica - Money tree Type of Plant: Money trees are a great "finger" leaved tree made famous by Taiwanese that began braiding them. In Taiwan they are also used in Fengshui to keep money in, presumably this is the root of the common English name Money Tree.. |
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Passiflora edulis - Passion Fruit Type of Plant: Passion fruit is used in 3 ways: Drinks/fruit as it is quite tasty! It is used as a foliage plant as the vine is quite attractive as a green fence/wall. And lastly the flowers are some of the most amazing blossom in town! |
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Psidium guajava - Guava Type of Plant: Guava is a commercially grown fruit crop. Trees are medium size, and fairly dense. Easy to grow, easy to fruit. |
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Salacca zalacca - Snake-skin Fruit Type of Plant: Snake-skin Fruit is from a large spiky palm tree native to Malaya and surrounding area. The fruit are quite unusual in that they actually do look like a snakes skin, with scales. The skin of the fruit peels off and the yellow firm fruit is revealed. The fruit flesh is eaten and the penny sized seeds are discarded. The closest fruit we can think of to this is pineapple, but drier. |
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Sandoricum koetjape - Santol Type of Plant: Santol is an attractive tree with tasty fruit. Not often exported far and wide due to thin flesh inside the fruit, it is very great to eat despite its availability. |
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Type of Plant: Solanum torvum is commercially used as an eggplant grafting root stock. Also used in some countries like Thailand for green curry. Though in other areas it is considered poisonous. |
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Synsepalum dulcificum - Miracle Fruit Type of Plant: Miracle fruit gains its name from its ability to turn sour and some bitter things sweet. When the fruit is eaten, things that you eat afterwards that are normal sour become sweet. This makes things like lemons, tomatoes, beer etc sweet! |
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Tamarindus indica -Tamarind Type of Plant: Tamarind fruit is used either as a table fruit or in jams/jellies, curries and other cooking. The leaves are also sometimes used as a vegetable in some areas. Trees grow fairly large and are very drought tolerant and require little care. |
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Theobroma cacao - Cacao/Chocolate Type of Plant: Cacao is one of the super foods, incredibly healthy in raw form. Trees are fairly easy to grow and medium speed. Chocolate can be used raw, in cooking or in drinks. |
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Trichosanthes cucumerina - Snake Gourd Type of Plant: Trichosanthes cucumerina, or Snake Gourd, is a gourd from tropical areas and prefers a hot climate. The fruits are very long, up to 1.5m in length, and rather thin. The new leaves/stems/tendrils are also edible. |
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Last Updated: February 17, 2012
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