I returned from a two week vacation last night, to a very pleasant surprise. on my Cabelluda plant was a single ripe fruit!  I had almost given up hope on these, as the plant bloomed for the first time last December, and while it initially set a number of fruit, most had aborted over the last six months with only three left on the plant by late May.  I was thinking that for such a small fruit, they sure take a long time to ripen, and wad starting to think that may be they would never turn yellow.

Imagine my surprise when I went out to see how all my plans survived the unexpected heat while I was away and there on my M. glazoviana was one bright yellow fruit.  I picked it and popped it in my mouth immediately, being so excited to taste one for the first time.  I think that it is a very tasty fruit, much like a jaboticaba, but with more acid balance to it.  The main drawback is that there is precious little flesh on the one I had, a thick yellow rind and a large seed with about 3 mm of edible flesh in the middle.  I am hoping that as the plant matures the pulp to seed ratio bets better, because I really like this fruit.

Now I am waiting for the next one to ripen!

Cheeers,
Richard

It would probably work, but I use straight coco coir and get excellent results.

Richard

deleted - I was describing "Jala" and not #7

Interesting report Simon. I had a similar issue, except every one of my fruit have aborted in the past week. Houghton, Arizona Purple, Rixford and Thai Red. Well over 30 fruits just turned yellow and dropped off at around 3+ weeks after pollination. I attributed it to the early flowering and the May rain, but now many of my plants are starting to bloom again, at what seems to be a more regular time for my DF.  At least I will have  a bunch of epiphyllum fruit to try in the next couple of weeks

Richard

It looks like a cholla, or cylindriopuntia to me

DM - That is good, because it does look like a megalanthus.

Mark -  I  am still trying to figure out what this "Red Megalanthus" is.  Based  comparing data from the plant you gave me to the published descriptions, it looks to be most similar to H. peruvianus. unfortunately I cannot find  any photos or drawings of peruvianus to try and confirm this and the plant that I purchased as H. peruvianus was not even close to being the real thing.

I now have two "Yellow Undatus" that look look like S. megalanthus, neither are large enough to bloom this year, so I just have to be patient.  The Tel-Zur group in Israel has published a photo of a yellow skinned undatus that has the megalanthus scalloped edges (70-02-09), so I am holding out hope that it really is the yellow skinned undatus.  Did the megalanthus cutting you got from Art look like a typical S. megalanthus?

Surprising that Alex Silber did not know about "Namibia Orange" since according to Ethan (who got the plant and  info from Huntington Botanic Gardens) it was collected by Alex's father and donated to HBG.  It might be that he does not know the plant by that name. I am hoping mine fruits this year.

Richard

Nice addition Starling1. Do you have any information on what the fruit is like?

Richard

Very nice Oscar, congratulations!

Richard

Quote from: greenman62 on April 19, 2015, 10:23:46 AM

i head these were good...

Cereus  validus

Cereus   jamacaru

Cereus Peruvianus

How can you tell them apart?

Ricshaw,
from left to right are C. validus, C. jamacaru and C. peruvianus.


validus is the one with the very long spines and jamacaru is similar to peruvianus but has deeper grooves on the wings

Cheers,
Richard

Oscar,

I was up at Fullerton a few weeks ago and had a talk with one of the people in charge of the collection.  A very bright guy, and his area of expertise is cacti, but he was interested in learning more about the fruit garden.  They do gave a large G. xanthochymus, in the collection and when I asked him if there were any other Garcinia species he first pointed to an empty spot and said that there might have been one "there" but died some years back.  Then he took me to an unidentified tree and told me that other people say  that it is a Garcinia sp.  but it looked more like some sort of Syzygium sp. to me.  Here are some photos of the tree in question.








He said that to the best of his knowledge it has never fruited.  Any guesses as to what this tree is?

Cheers,
Richard

I thought this would have happened by now!

How much longer do we have to wait for the technology to become more affordable?
 
I wonder how many years will pass before we have a handheld device that can analyze tissue samples of plants, and compare their genomes to help identify and classify them?

seems like it could be done now...but we'd rather spend the money on building a new bomb. 

Exactly right Adam.  The technology is here, but the money is not.  That is the dirty little secret of scientific research.  We go where the money is, and unfortunately the government does not care enough about plant taxonomy to designate funding for the work to be done.

Cheers,
Richard

I can't wait!  What an incredible collection!  You truly are the Prince of Plinia

Cheers,
Richard

Oscar,

How old do they have to be to fruit?  I have a bunch of seedlings and I'm not 34😳

Cheers
Richard