Question on cocoplums

[AndrewAZ]

Does anyone know much about cocoplums?  I know it is a shrub that grows in Miami used at a lot of houses for landscape purposes.  It has small, pinkish purple plum like fruit that I mostly hear is bland.
Well, my wife is from Nicaragua and kept on telling me how much she loved icaco, cocoplums as a child.  I always thought that her memory was off because I never heard anything good about the fruit.
But, tonight she showed me a farmer's market in Managua and had large, deep purple plum shaped fruit labeled as icaco. It looked nothing like what I have seen from Miami.  Do any central Americans on here know anything about this fruit?  Would love to grow it if I could find the correct variety.

[sunny]

Does anyone know much about cocoplums?  I know it is a shrub that grows in Miami used at a lot of houses for landscape purposes.  It has small, pinkish purple plum like fruit that I mostly hear is bland.
Well, my wife is from Nicaragua and kept on telling me how much she loved icaco, cocoplums as a child.  I always thought that her memory was off because I never heard anything good about the fruit.
But, tonight she showed me a farmer's market in Managua and had large, deep purple plum shaped fruit labeled as icaco. It looked nothing like what I have seen from Miami.  Do any central Americans on here know anything about this fruit?  Would love to grow it if I could find the correct variety.

Do you have a pic of them to show?

[pineislander]

Yes, in Central America Cocoplum (Chrysobalanus_icaco) is called Icaco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysobalanus_icaco

Childhood memories, yes.

[johnb51]

It's true we use the plant as hedges in South Florida but the fruit never has much flavor.

[AndrewAZ]

That's why I think there has to be different varities.  I don't see them being sold in a fruit stand if they have no flavor.  I might have to have my mother in law send some fruit back next time she visits Managua and try to grow it from seed.

[Odenwald]

That's weird as I just started a post on cocoplums.  I searched if anyone already had a post, but nothing came up.  Maybe as the subject line was misspelled.  Anyway they grow on the west coast of Florida over by Bradenton Beach.  I'm going to try and cultivate some further inland.  It may end up being too cold for them here.  Walmart is selling the plants and they even reduced them as no one was buying them here.  I'm not sure if they need cross pollination so I bought two plants.  I've eaten them where they are cooked with brown sugar.  Very tasty like a sweet prune and with the bonus of a nut inside them that tastes like an almond.

[gnappi]

"Cocoplum" I've owned and seen in So. Flo has new growth flush that is unmistakably red, the approximately one to 1 1/2 inch fruits are dark purple. The seed is large, the flesh (what little there is of it) is white, sweet, and tasteless.

Other than to draw pollinators or hide an air conditioner from militant city code inspectors... IMO what we have here is a waste of time and energy to grow.

[Rex Begonias]

Native plants nurseries commonly have 3 varieties- red tip (probably most commonly planted and carried at larger nurseries and big box stores), green tip, and the horizontal cocoplum (a coastal variant of the green tip which grows as the name suggests, primarily low and horizontal- typically maxing out a 2-4footish I believe.

There is definitely variation in the fruit and I know there is a type mentioned in the book Frutas de Brasil.

It’s a native to FL, it’s pretty, and I think it would be interesting to see if there could be improved cultivars.  I actually kinda enjoy the fruit, most are just a fluffy sugar kinda of taste, but like you mentioned, but the nut is also edible and of decent taste.  They’re no mango, not even close, but if you have the space or just see them fruiting around your neighborhood, I think they’re worth trying.