The Tropical Fruit Forum

The ones you have can be hacked roughly and can form good hedges at 2m. They are tough and in your climate will need some extra water.

The lilly pillies mentioned are the common small cooler climate species but there are dozens of species which are more exciting than that lot. There are 20 or 30 species in my district. Some of the 50m rainforest giants are majestic. S. fibrosum has small but quite nice apple tasting fruits, S.papyraceum has bright coloured fruit, S.wilsoni is very small with lovely pink flowers and I could go on and on. Maybe the more glamorous ones like cormiflorum and suborbiculare would have been better abroad.

I have a very high success rate on lychees, rambutan, sapodilla, wax apple, guava, langsat, sour sop, canistel and others. In the last 2 weeks I have put over 200 marcots on my trees and expect most to work well from experience. Pity its hard to post pics these days.
Anyway I see a few red flags in the pics and descriptions. Ideal branch width is 1cm to 3 cm but micromarcots are easy. Ideal ringbark width is 1cm to 2cm not like in the pics below. Paint or brush with rootex or clonex 8g per l concentration. I prefer gel to powder. Have pre prepared ziplock (I use 15 x 9cm mostly) cut on one side then tape over ring back. Tape it up well. Aluminium foil does not change the success rate. Remove in 4 weeks to 6 months with 8 weeks being average. Make sure they are well rooted unlike the plant below in the pic. Trim then pot. EASY. The mix in the bag I use is 50 : vermiculite and coco coir but sphagnum is fine. Below does look too leafy with too many roots and should be settled in a pot until properly rooted.The ties shown are less secure and looser than using electrical tape. The width of bark removed below is way in excess of required. In many cases it works out better than grafting for tree vigour and speed to fruiting.

Sawadee, a gift wishing for wealth. Anyway these are all Garcinia hombriana (same as G.celebica) and are more common near the sea but can be inland. They are widespread from islands in Bay of Bengal through SE Asia to PNG. This species is variable with different forms. Popular opinion says it is one of the parents of mangosteen and unlike mangosteen produces true seeds.

Well the rain sure is here with about double the usual rain for the last 5 months since the wet season began early and another 150mm last night. Somewhere has to be drier to compensate.

Mafai are typically the thai ones but they come in a variety of forms and fruit colours. Some look a lot like rambai even but the purple seeds give their identity away. There are a few 50 footers on my street in a bit of regrowth by the road. They sure have heavy crops. Speaking of big trees santols get get very large indeed.

They self pollinate well here including gold ones. Birds and bats leave the flowers alone but ruin fruit. Flowers seems to have ants,thrips, tiny beetles and ants but are visited by small native bees. Soursop don't usually set fruit in their first flowering season. My mongrel morado has flowered for years without setting a fruit but other varieties I have are bountiful.

My 2 bisex ones are often humming with insects and can pollinate their own flowers. The female trees I am aware of can set fruit without any male flowers being present. Presumabley the sparse ring of anthers are actually pollen bearing or they are doing a 'mangosteen'.

They can take a bit of leaf trimming and are a bit smaller than coconut leaves

My 13 yo male has had many thousands of flowers......and individual clusters can have 50. It produced one stray female flower once and I have checked it thoroughly. For about 5 or 6 years my 2 bisex Lucs have produced many thousands of flowers and the  ratio seems frozen at around 5% female flowers. The 3 mature female trees I know including mine have only produced female flowers.   

Ok there are around 20 species in the genus and they are related to calamus, unsurprisingly. The 2 best edible species are Salacca zalacca which come in 2 forms each with around 20 varieties, that is bali form amboina which is a small mono with good fruit. Gula Pasir from the eastern highlands are amongst the best. Salacca zalacca var zallacca is big has separate sexes and yogyarta is a good one and it has a few names. S.wallichiana from thailand has the wilder types sakum and rakum and the domesticated sala. Sexes are separate and they are big and thorny. Noen wong and sala variety sumalee are the best. Multiseeded fruit of sala are reputed to produce more female plants but suckers are better for propogation in all varieties and edible species.

Everything will be alright doesn't jive with me either. The climate change is normal and fluctuations are natural camp doesn't have many survivors these days. And the god will look after us camp was abandoned long ago. CO2 levels need to fall and emissions get increasing and vegetation clearing continues unabated.

What is the fruit like?