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Anyone Grow Interesting Tropical Fruits?

I thought it would be fun if people would provide pictures of some of the interesting tropical fruits they are growing.

I'll start with three very different examples. What they have in common is that all are cool growers, originally from high elevations in the Andes. I don't have a greenhouse, and although it's frost free here (the last 4 winters) it's too cold to grow lowland tropicals, for the most part. Not all of the pictures are of my plants, but I am growing all three of these right now.

I'll include a Passiflora, although I also want to start a separate thread for Passifloras.

First, Mountain Papaya, Vasconcellea pubescens x monoica. This is a hybrid made by Martin Grantham at SF State University. The picture is of a plant in a private garden in San Francisco. I have a rooted cutting of this plant which is about to go (tomorrow) into heavy bloom. It had a couple flowers when new last year, but did not make fruit. The plant is female, parthenocarpic, but also makes a few seeds (apomixis?). It gets hundreds of fruits, the size of apricots. The fruit I tasted was pretty bland, but I think people normally eat Vasconcellea fruits either cooked, often as a vegetable, or preserved with sugar and/or spices.

I got 5 seeds out of the fruit I tasted, and from that one seedling. It lives with a friend. Seedlings are also expected to have the properties of the parent.




Passiflora 'Mission Dolores'. P. parritae x antioquiensis. Carlos Rendon's hybrid. This is self-fertile, but not necessarily self-pollinating. The juice of the ripe fruit tastes to me somewhat like an orange without the tartness. The flowers are up to 7 inches in diameter, on peduncles that can get up to 2 feet long.

The plant growing in the trees at the SF Botanical Garden (they are having a sale Friday (members) and Saturday (public), by the way--their big annual sale).




A piece of vine from the original plant, in the Misison Dolores neighborhood of San Francisco:



Fruits hanging in the garden of a friend of the hybridizer, in SF:



An opened fruit, from the hybridizer's plant (we drank the juice):





Finally, yet another Andean species, Fuchsia boliviana Alba.

The plant blooms successively on inflorescences that lengthen for weeks. The fruit tastes a bit like kiwi fruit, in my opinion. The squirrels also like the fruit, and they shredded the inflorescence/infructescence on one of my plants.



Anyone else grow anything interesting?
 
My Mountain Papaya has just opened flowers. This is a rooted cutting of the plant at the top. Hopefully fruit will follow.

 
Although I don't currently have any pictures, I grow miracle fruit. Miracle fruit changes how you taste other things. Anything that is sour or bitter becomes sweet :)
 
Miracle fruit is a really amazing one. I think it requires consistently tropical temperatures, not just above freezing? I've thought about growing it, but it doesn't seem like one that could possibly make it outside. Does yours make fruit?
 
Well, I started a bunch of seeds this year so I don't have fruit yet buuut...

citrus (kumquat x tangerine) x ???
P5050052.jpg


I think my 7th attempt at Theobroma cacao
P5050051.jpg


Cinnamomum verum (first attempt ever)
P5050050.jpg


Casimiroa edulis (first attempt ever)
P5050049.jpg


Annona sp. Golden Sugar Apple. It's some hybrid, unknown which species - from the shop "This rare Annona is a species originally brought to us from Costa Rica. We believe it to be a natural hybrid between A. muricata and A. glabra. " My first attempt at growing sugar apples. Still waiting on A. reticulata to sprout too.
P5050047.jpg


and from left to right purple passionfruit (from the grocery store, I'm assuming it's P. edulis), pichuberry (Physalis peruviana), and dragonfruit. I just repotted the first two, so we'll see if they survive. It's my first time growing all of these.
P5050045.jpg


I have a couple other seeds I'm still waiting on too.
 
Miracle fruit is a really amazing one. I think it requires consistently tropical temperatures, not just above freezing? I've thought about growing it, but it doesn't seem like one that could possibly make it outside. Does yours make fruit?
Mine consistently makes fruit but to be fair, it's in tropical conditions (Miami is pretty tropical at least) all year except "winter" where it drops to the upper 40s at most
 
Interesting fuschia there :D
 
No pics at the moment, but I have a handful of Passiflora species, Dragonfruit seedlings, regular and blood orange tree saplings, and just planted seeds of Casimiroa edulis and Manilkara zapota.
 
I just noticed today my Fuchsia is in bud.

By the way, I do have an absolute ton of Dragonfruit seeds. I bought 2 fruits a couple weeks ago ($1 each!). By the time I got to them they were a little past peak, so I ended up saving most of the seeds. I tested some for germination and they look good. I don't intend to grow the plant, although it's kind of fun, because germination is so quick.

If anyone wants some seeds (i.e. >100), let me know. I'd be happy to send them with a little padding in an envelope with a first class stamp (i.e. free) or if someone wants to send their own stamped envelope I'd be happy to do it that way.

Here are the fruits, cut open:



Here are the seeds: The whole collection on the left, a few after 6 days on top of a moist paper towel in a ziploc bag, right:

 
  • #10
Dragonfruit is a very interesting plant, fruits taste kind of like kiwi to me and are more interesting for the look in all honesty, and incredibly easy to germinate. Give a person ten seeds and they could well end up with 8-10 plant in a week...... note of warning though, don't eat the red part of the fruit :)
 
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