The Tropical Fruit Forum

Hi there

I'd love to get some nice Citrus and some other seeds, as most Citrus apart from Key lime, Persian lime, Shaddok, mandarins, sour and sweet orange are not available here.

Looking for:

Dekopon, Mandelo (Cocktail Grapefruit), Lemonade Tree, Rangpur lime, cultivars of Kumquat, Wampee Clausena lansium, edible Calamondin, African Pomelo, Honey Pomelo, Ugli, cultivars of Lemons, Red Navel and Cape gooseberry Physalis peruviana.

Am living in the Dominican Republic and have a shipping address in Florida too.
A not willing to spend a fortune, but am willing to swap or send a few Dollars for shipping costs etc.

Offering for a swap or for some bucks, seeds of:

Annona sp. (indet. we have 17 species here)
Bromelia pinguin
Coccoloba uvifera
Melicoccus bijugatus
Syzygium malaccense
And all the regular tropical stuff:
Annona muricata
Casimiroa sp.
Malphigia glabra
Manilkara zapota
Mangifera indica
Passiflora edulis flavicarpa
Passiflora e. edulis x flavicarpa
Passiflora quadrangularis
Persea avocado
Pouteria sapota
Solanum betaceum
Solanum quitoense
Spondias dulcis

Peppers:
Jalapeño (Capsicum annuum var. annuum), this Jalapeño cultivar has a hot taste and 2,500–10,000 Scoville units. Plants are shortlived annuals.
Habanero (Capsicum chinense), very hot cultivar, rated 100,000–350,000 on the Scoville scale. Plants are small shrubs and can get several years old
Ají moron (Capsicum frutescens). Wild species with small hot fruit. Plants can grow to a hight of 3 meters and get several years old
Ají montesino (Capsicum annuum var. aviculare). Wild species with tiny round and very hot fruit. Plants are small shrubs (2m) and will get several years old.
Ají dulce (Capsicum chinense), a mild cultivar. Plants are small shrubs and can get several years old

Am going on a mountaintrip in the next few days - so don't worry there will be an answer.

Thanks Martin

Hi Nicky

You are coming up with some very interesting Citrus cultivars ! Thanks for making me aware of Mandelo and Panzarella.
By the way, are these cold hardy or are you just posting at the wrong place?

cheers Martin

Can you comment on their cold hardiness? Closer to orange or lemon?

Will the Lemonade tree have nice and delicous fruit, here in the tropics at sealevel?

_{That's more interesting than cold hardiness}  Martin

Can someone explain to me why some fruits come true to seeds and others, like avocado and mango, do not? I can't wrap my head around it.

Hi Zafra

The embryo in seeds usually consist of cells which result from fertilization. Means a pollen tube fertilized a egg cell. Most of the fruit however, (and even the seed coat and some tissue within the seed coat, the so called nucellar tissue) have a totaly different origin, as they are formed from cells of the mother plant. This is why a lemon tree always has lemons as fruit. Even when you pollinate it with grapefruit, it will still form lemon-fruit as the fruit tissue is largely maternal, and next generation cells are found within seeds only.

Lets go back to the seed. So the embryo usually consists of cells from the next generation. There are however some cells within the seed that are purely maternal (e.g. the nucellar tissue). In some plants this tissue forms additional embryos within the seeds. These additional embryos consist of pure maternal cells and are therefore clones of the mother plants. This happens in many Citrus e.g. in most lemons. A single lemon seed will contain many embryos (it's polyembryonic) and the many clonal embryos will outnumber the other one. Lemon seeds will therefore give you many lemon plants (clones of the mother plant) and only rarely a plant that got some characters of the pollen donor.

A few Citrus species (e.g. pumelo) and a few cultivars (e.g. Meyers lemon) don't have this trait. They do not form additional embyos from maternal tissue, and they will therefore have regular embryos only. (These Citrus might have a single embryo per seed only monoembryonic, or the embryo might divide and form multiple embryos polyembryonic). these Citrus do not come true from seeds as the embryos, seedlings and resulting plants will have traits of the pollen donor. This case, while being rare in Citrus, is generally much more widespead in plants.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucellar_embryony
As for more plants that clone themselves via seeds see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apomixis
The Citrus story in other words: http://www.ubergardener.com/grow-true-to-type-citrus-from-seed/
forum seach and google will give you many more hits.

Also I'd still love a rooting stick of meyer lemon. Does anyone know of a reliable provider?

Official budwood - is the most likely pathogen free source for cuttings in the US. I'd go for no other cuttings, in order to reduce the risks imposed on the Citrus production of your country. Did you check whether it is legal to import cuttings to Venezuela? Did you check out the variety of other lemon cultivars coming true to seed?

double post

And you're right about Avocados -- they have the nice benefit of hanging on the tree for a long time (like Citrus).  A lot of the trees I've planted on the streetside here have been Avocados.

As for the streetside fruit - it might also depend on the perceived value ot the fruit. Avocados are much more valued here than breadfruit, as judged by market price and frequency of consumption. So avocadoes might be picked by the people living near the trees, while breadfruit just doesn't get that much attention.

... Beacon Hill Food Forest ...

Public parks with a focus on fruit trees already exist? Didn't know that! Sounds very exiting!

I'd guess it'll be harder to do in Southern California where most fruit trees would require irrigation.

I'd be fine visiting an edible yucca and cactus garden with an occasional drought resitant fruit tree in Southern California . - and buy / grow my own  fruit of the species needing irrigation.

Hey I'm new! ...

Welcome fruitninja

Do commercial kiwi cultivars actually produce viable seed?

Yes, they do. I'd search for Golden Kiwi as they are way better than the green ones. Even better but maybe more tricky to find are "hardy kiwis" (Actinidia arguta).

If it were possible, even if ones odds of getting a good plant were low, it could still be a way to get a male for pollination since kiwi is dioecious

Your seedlings will develop at very different rates, as male kiwi plants grow much faster than females. So the pretty plants are likely to be males -> Make shure to keep some of the slower growing females.

As usual for me, cold hardiness is a no-issue, if the plant can be raised and brought to fruit in 6 months ( it isn't so out of this world, many vegetable are capable of doing so). Are there some passifloras capable of doing it too?

Passiflora foetida might fruit in a timespan that short from seed - and is said to be edible. Passiflora gracilis is an annual, I don't think its edible though.

What rootstocks are used for Citrus in the tropics / ultratropics?

Thais also probably similarly wonder how any American can afford to pay $10 a pound for mangosteens when they are only paying $1 per kilo.

Shortly before Christmas is a fancy time for fruit-lovers as supermarkets get fruit and stuff that you will rarely see at other times. My local supermarket here in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) had some exotics too: Huge Italien chestnuts (Castanea sp.) and "real" cherries (fruit of Prunus avium). As for the cherries - 200g were about 9 US$  ! - I don't need to say i went for nisperos instead (Manilkara zapota)  .

Merry Christmas to everyone!

I´m curious: this plant with fast growing, being already 1 meter tall, born spontaneously in one of my containers.  The leafs has redish borders, an interesting aspect. Somebody knows her? What´s her name? Usefull for something?

looks like Chenopodium album to me.
Some people weed it - others eat it:
http://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Chenopodium+album

cheers Martin

Here in Florida it is commonly grown as an ornamental, under the name "Geiger Tree", in honor of the Key West captain who introduced it in the 1800's.

The fruits are not desirable fresh, but they are delicious when prepared like figs by boiling in sugared water.

Here in Santo Domingo Cordia sebestena is a common ornamental - plant looks fairly similar - fruit are white however. I could collect seeds by the kg in case someone is interested.

yes edible - raw somewhat boring - I'll try to boil some

Hi there

I am a botanist and born in Europe, where I used to check out speciality stores (e.g. Asian stores) for fancy and unusual fruit. At the moment i am living in the Dominican Republic - and enjoy the variety of tropical fruits.
I love that there is no need to bring my passionflowers indoors in "winter". I miss Kumquat however, so i will try to grow my own. Anybody knows whether they will grow/fruit in a 13B climate?

cheers Martin