Surprising syzygium, syzygia

[BMc]

I picked up a few fairly obscure syzygium species fruits from the gardens this week and let them sit a few days. The first was Syzygium monospermum, a large white fruit almost identical to S cormiflorum, which I've posted about before. Monospermum is a fair bit larger though. Fruiting is the same and spectacular cauliflory on a tall single trucked tree, with fruits in big clusters all the way to the ground. I didn't expect a lot from the fruit, being so similar to cormiflorum, which tasted like cardboard mushrooms, but I let them sit a few days. They have the same dry thick flesh the texture of firm mushroom, but they have a subtle sweet taste, very like a pear. The flavour is subtle though, but quite pleasant.

Second was labelled as a Syzygium wilsonii ssp. With purple fruit. First thought is that it might be plum satinash, but the leaves are long and leathery and the plant is an open understory smallish shrub very much like wilsonii. Again I dint expect much because of the fairly terrible quality of the hedging wilsonii around. The deep purple fruits are very nice - sweet, soft, a bit melting even. Struggling for a comparison, quite unlike any other lily pily type syzygiums.

Surprised by both these plants and would gladly grow them in a rainforest style planting.

[Mike T]

BMc I have tried some wild forms of S.wilsoni (powder puff lilly pilly) that taste alright. Is S.monospermum the new name for S.erythrocalyx? There is a whole lot of diversity in fruit quality in the bumpy satin ashes and assigning them to species is pretty hard even for botanists.It seems there are a few undescribed species and subspecies and some have fruit that is ok.

[BMc]

Hi Mike, Aparently monospermum was formerly Syn. Syzygium erythrocalyx aff., but that is taxonomical stupidity at its absolute highest level. The monospermum is the Daintree Satinash and is in the fleshy white syzygium camp. Growth is very tall with a distinct straight trunk for the fruit to form on. Leaves shiny and quite erect. Erythrocalyx is the Johnstone River Apple or Red Bud Satinash and is in the lily pily apple camp. Its growth is very ornamental and sort of pyramidal. Leaves hanging and velvety. Very distinct. If anything the monospermum is often confused for cormiflorum, but the size of the fruit, seed shape and the colour of new growth (mauve on monospermum) seperates them I believe. Lumping the two together as erythrocalyx would be like lumping mangosteen and mundu togethter, the differences being at least that far apart.

[Mike T]

I had much trouble getting the various forms of erythrocalyx and cormiflorum identified.There are a range of fruit colors,foliage types and color,growth habits, etc in all the similar species it seems and lots of half way trees.Some places have 3 or 4 forms together that are hard to identify.

[BMc]

Yeah, the rainforest populations would have lots of cross overs and sub species. I still cant understand how anyone could confuse monospermum and erythrocalyx or think they are close enough to lump at any stage. The ones we have down here are a bit easier as most have been in captivity for 2-3 generation (or more for the Red Bud) and so are pretty stable. The native ones around here are distinct from the northern spp. But I guess there is lots still to be done with Australian plants, take Diploglottis for example, with some having quite distinct highland and lowland forms, D. pedleyii having a few subspecies, including one that is certainly a Mischarytera, Campbellii should probably be on its own, etc...