So here’s the recap:

Last month I was told someone was selling grafted trees of several rare Indian and Pakistani mangos on eBay . Upon looking I found a seller named “GuavaKing” listing grafted trees of Langra, Anwar Ratol, Chausa, and Banganpalli. These varieties are not grafted by ANY of the major mango-producing nurseries in the United States, making them fairly highly sought after.

I inquired to the seller asking him where he obtained these varieties, but didn’t get a response. My friend Jack (DuncanYoung) did get a response from the seller who claimed to have the trees in his yard, and ordered several.

He received the trees in the mail and I was immediately suspicious about 2 things: the Banganapalli, a variety I’ve had exposure to and whose foliage I was very familiar with, was not a Banganpalli. DuncanYoung requested a photo of the man’s Banganapalli. He provided a photo of a small tree that clearly was not Banganpalli based on the foliage. Banganpalli produces long, flat , pointed leaves and has extremely thin stems. The tree in the photo had short, stout curled or wavy leaves, and regular thick stems.

The second red flag was that the trees (in 1 gallon pots) were not the cleft or veneer grafts you would see from an amateur, but “T” buds that only 2 nurseries in Florida know how to do with mango. And only one of those wholesells them as 1 gallons: Zill High Performance Plants.

I then observed that one of the small trees Labelled “Anwar Ratal” appeared to be a Julie mango. Julie has distinctive leaves, and tends to flower as a 1 gallon size tree. Coincidentally, this tree was also flowering and had inflorescence resembling Julie too.

Later while stepping these 1 gallon trees up to 3 gallon, a small yellow tag dropped out of one of the pots of the “Langra” tree: the tag, pictured in the thread, reads “NDM #4” (Nam Doc Mai #4). The foliage on this tree appeared to be that of NDM, and the sap smell was identical too. I immediately recognized this as a small tag used by Zill High Performance Plants to label their young grafted trees. I knew then the guy was obtaining the trees from Zill, and selling them under different names, knowing full well he could get high prices for 1 gallon trees under these false names.



DuncanYoung then emailed GuavaKing asking about the tag. He responded claiming no knowledge of it and claimed that he was obtaining his pots from a local garden center. I can supply email proof of this. He evidently also fed this lie to other buyers.

Forum member Scott then informed me last week that he had purchased 12 trees from GuavaKing. He also knew his real name: Babar Majeed. This was different than the name that he had shipped the trees under but both names were associated with the same companies.

As final confirmation of this fraud, I went into Zill and was able to ascertain that this man had indeed purchased in 2017 50 Alphonso, 50 Nam Doc Mai, 50 Julie, and 50 Himsagar, all as 1 gallon trees. I suspect he also purchased trees in 2016 under a different name, but did not search for additional invoices. It was implied he may have purchased Lancetilla as well.

This person is a disgusting scam artist, a thief and a liar. What he is doing is completely illegal, and he should be exposed for it.

I've had mine in a 5 gallon flat pot, soaked in warm water all year long without issues.
Just not the entire plant submerged in water that would definitely kill the plant.
The warm wet feet basically absorbs into the soil as needed, being warm is even better.
3-4 inches of water at the foot of the pot, with a titanium heater set at 60-70 degrees.

Not going to lie but oh my got man...Pandan pancakes are the best pancakes in the world fresh!
You know, those green pancakes you get from the Asian markets after you stuff your face with a bowl of pho hahaha!