Tenom Horticultural Park Seed Haul

[red durian]

Caught 26 interesting species in fruit today, including:

Willughbeia agustifolia
Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius
Baccaurea membranaceae
Prainea limpato
Xanthophyllum amoenum
Dimocarpus longan
Garcinia spicata, G. dulcis, G. nitida, G. cambogia
Rheedia edulis
Baccaurea dulcis
Dacryodes rostrata
Nephelium cuspidatum
Salacca affinis



New delicious surprises were:






and





and

[fruitlovers]

 Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

[murahilin]

Cool. Do you have any pics of the different artocarpus species?

Do you know if they have any other Willughbeia species there?

[red durian]

Cool. Do you have any pics of the different artocarpus species?

Do you know if they have any other Willughbeia species there?

They have another Willughbeia species there that has not fruited.  The 3 artocarpus species had seeds on the ground in rotting fruit that had germinated but hadn't yet rooted into the ground, so I was able to get tiny seedlings, but did not see the fresh fruits.  The only Artocarpus I had was an amazing chempedak jak fruit cross that looked pretty dull but was beyond fantastic. 

[red durian]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

[fruitlovers]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

Tough one to grow in Hawaii as apparently it needs hand pollination and not all too happy in our climate.

[Gouralata]

Thank you for Baccaurea membranaceae, found near Serikin but not identified called Tempoļ merah. The Sri Aman Kubal Willughbeia sp. is bigger and with a white flesh. Never found the one you have, snif ! So many fruits there !

[DurianLover]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

Tough one to grow in Hawaii as apparently it needs hand pollination and not all too happy in our climate.

Can you elaborate? Wondering what kind of challenges I could face growing these...

[red durian]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

Tough one to grow in Hawaii as apparently it needs hand pollination and not all too happy in our climate.

For sure, it is not hand pollinated at the Park, but perhaps HI lacks the pollinator? 

[Felipe]

RD, so you are planning to take all those seeds to Belize?

[red durian]

RD, so you are planning to take all those seeds to Belize?

I got enough to sell to folks on the TFF and I am planting a few for myself to take as small trees to Belize and a few to sell as small trees here in Sabah (ie: stuff like suriname cherry and black sapote that no one has here)

[tabbydan]

You are definitely the master RD....

I'm boiling with envy over here... I've never had such a haul.

I'll have to get notes from you sometime and make a "fruit trip" planned around your amazing experience.

[red durian]

Thanks.  It is a difficult thing to manage.  A wiser man would have taken stickers to put on the outside of bags.  In cases where I thought I might get confused later (ie: when I couldn't put a whole fruit in with the seeds snatched out of drops) I had to write a description of the bag and /or seed in my notebook, which kept getting stained from all the fruit on my hands.  Wiser man would take a second bottle of water for hand washing and maybe some oil and a rag for latex washing.  I came out of the park a real mess with my shirt and pants stained to high heaven from climbing for fruits.  Terrible ants in that park.  Climb for a black sapote and see what I mean, if you visit.  I spent too much time looking up and almost stepped on a 1m long snake under a durian.  Be mindful of snakes there, too.
Got home tired but had 4 seed species already rooting that I had to get into bags... and had to cut up a soda can to make some decent labels for the new and unexpected species.  Also had to get some photos before the fruits got too ugly.  Now the challenge is to let people on TFF know what is for sale before the seeds start germinating.  So far, I have only put an ad up for the Willughbeia agustifolia.

[Mike T]

Great selection Red and if you and gouralata keep dueling we'll all benefit.

[red durian]

Great selection Red and if you and gouralata keep dueling we'll all benefit.

Gouralata's posts are amazing.  I am just the water boy and Gouralata is the quarterback.   Not sure how to say that in Aussie rules football.   

[Mike T]

Red I am in Rugby League territory in the north and halfback is the equivalent position.Gouralata certainly has been pushing back the frontiers (fruitiers) but this assemblage also has muscle.

[red durian]

Here is a photo with some labels.  Got some fresh klambuku today and an unusual ARECACEAE. 

[Ethan]

Wow RD, that is quite a haul and thank you  for doing all the extra work to share your find with us.  Such diversity there, it is incredible.

[fruitlovers]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

Tough one to grow in Hawaii as apparently it needs hand pollination and not all too happy in our climate.

I haven't grown them myself, but reporting what Frank Sekiya and John Mood who grew it told me. Frank told me the plants were not happy and died after a while. John showed me his plants, which he got to grow but said that they only fruited if he hand pollinated the flowers. So apparently we don't have the correct insect that pollinates them in Borneo?

Can you elaborate? Wondering what kind of challenges I could face growing these...

[fruitlovers]

Great selection Red and if you and gouralata keep dueling we'll all benefit.

Gourlata's posts posts are amazing.  I am just the water boy and Gourlata is the quarterback.   Not sure how to say that in Aussie rules football.

Thanks to both RD and Gouralata for posting great photos and info. In the past it's been nearly impossible first to find anyone who is in that area a)fruit fanatic, b) speaks english, c)has internet access, and d) is willing to post and share. We're very lucky now to have all the conditions met by these 2 members. Borneo and Brazil are definitely the major 2 hot spots left for fruit biodiversity.
Red Durian what size are those klambuku fruits? Your photo is great with all the labels all perfectly lined up. Can you please just add some scale in future photos?

[red durian]

Wow RD, that is quite a haul and thank you  for doing all the extra work to share your find with us.  Such diversity there, it is incredible.

I was thinking yesterday how much harder it must have been for the people to start the park, back in the days with no internet and no Tropicalfruitforum.  I feel like a fruit punk taking advantage of all the modern tricks to get information.

[fruitlovers]

Wow RD, that is quite a haul and thank you  for doing all the extra work to share your find with us.  Such diversity there, it is incredible.

I was thinking yesterday how much harder it must have been for the people to start the park, back in the days with no internet and no Tropicalfruitforum.  I feel like a fruit punk taking advantage of all the modern tricks to get information.

Back in the olde days it wasn't just hard to get the info, what was really hard was to find the plant material and get it to its destination alive. Most things were shipped and took extremely long to arrive, and were usually DOA (dead on arrival). If you read David Fairchild's 4 books you get a pretty good idea of the difficulties faced even by people funded with government money. Those books are a fun read, so i recommend them to all, whether interested in these difficulties or not.

[red durian]

And they had it easy compared to Captain Bligh trying to get breadfruit to the Americas.

[fruitlovers]

And they had it easy compared to Captain Bligh trying to get breadfruit to the Americas.

I think yet another version of the movie Mutiny on the Bounty should be filmed. But this time starring the breadfruit! Which is not even mentioned in any of the previous i think 3- 4 versions?

[red durian]

Salacca affinis  -  first impressions:  peels easy, no thorns on fruit, sweet, juicy, fragrant, acid, not much pulp


Garcinia nitida  - Rich flavour, but  too sour for me to enjoy out of hand.  Pretty tree.




Baccaurea dulcis - Sweet  with a bit of typical Baccaurea acidity, like a langsat but with no latex and difficult to get flesh off seed.  This was my wife's fav from my fruit haul.


? - Delicious low acid rich musky flavoured fruit.  I don't even know what family it is.





lahun or lasun in Murut language.  This palm fruit tastes terrible, but was being sold in the market today, so it must have some use.  It is strongly acidic.



purple pulasan... is it purple or is it black? 



Rheedia edulis - I can snack on a pocket full of them, but not one after another as they are too acidic, I find.

[DurianLover]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

Tough one to grow in Hawaii as apparently it needs hand pollination and not all too happy in our climate.

For sure, it is not hand pollinated at the Park, but perhaps HI lacks the pollinator?

I know there are 30 types of bats in Sri Lanka, many of them working as pollinators. I'm sure Sabah is nearly identical in bat diversity. So, I really don't think hand pollination would be necessary in my case, just like it is not necessary in Sabah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but some parts of Hawaii might have a "bat problem"?
BTW, I asked one agriculture "expert" about Sri Lankan weevil and its natural enemies, but he wasn't even familiar with that insect. I'll ask few others when I meet them. My guess bats keeping them in check, and it's not an issue ( they can devour 1000 mosquitoes an hour)   Seems like South Florida lacking insect eating bats, and that might be a key difference.

[red durian]

Forum members here in Malaysia may find it interesting that I also found some Tropical Amerian fruits ripe at the park:
Suriname cherry (avg quality - must eat super ripe)
Black sapote (great quality)
Canistel (best I have eaten anywhere in the world)
Peanut Butter Fruit (delicious, but only one I have ever eaten)
Myrcia vexator (fruits on ground too old to eat)

[BMc]

Did you pick up any of the M vexator seed? I've been searching this part of the world for ages in vain for a reliable fruiting tree with a sharing owner.

[red durian]

Did you pick up any of the M vexator seed? I've been searching this part of the world for ages in vain for a reliable fruiting tree with a sharing owner.

I sold 5 this morning and have 10 fruits left, all picked up off the ground.

[red durian]

Somehow I managed to ignore Garcinia spicata until today.  I haven't been impressed with this genus,  so perhaps that is how I missed it.  Anyway, tasted it a few minutes ago.  It is nothing like any of the other garinias I have eaten.  It is only mildly acidic.  It is mildly sweet.  The thing that hits you when you eat it is how aromatic it is, like biting into a more intensely flavoured rose apple mixed with a low acid apricot with a denser texture.  The texture is like a persimmon eaten before it goes soft, or like a Mammee americana, but less tough.  Didn't get enough fruit to sell seeds though, as tree only had a few.

[fruitlovers]

Great haul red durian! If i lived in that area i would be in that park every day!! Maybe i'd pitch a tent there. 
How was the taste of Willughbeia agustifolia, Artocarpus rigidus, A elasticus, A. lanceifolius?

W. agustifulia was great.  I ate 3 in a row. The fruit is  tart, sweet, fragrant, with a garcinia texture.  Definitely worth growing if you have something it can climb on.

Tough one to grow in Hawaii as apparently it needs hand pollination and not all too happy in our climate.

For sure, it is not hand pollinated at the Park, but perhaps HI lacks the pollinator?

I know there are 30 types of bats in Sri Lanka, many of them working as pollinators. I'm sure Sabah is nearly identical in bat diversity. So, I really don't think hand pollination would be necessary in my case, just like it is not necessary in Sabah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but some parts of Hawaii might have a "bat problem"?
BTW, I asked one agriculture "expert" about Sri Lankan weevil and its natural enemies, but he wasn't even familiar with that insect. I'll ask few others when I meet them. My guess bats keeping them in check, and it's not an issue ( they can devour 1000 mosquitoes an hour)   Seems like South Florida lacking insect eating bats, and that might be a key difference.

Only one native species of bat in Hawaii and they are almost extinct...you very rarely see them.