Miracle fruit - are these flowers?

[KarenRei]

And if so, followup: .... Why?  The plant is so little, I can't imagine it flowering at such a small size!

[HMHausman]

Strange looking growth for miracle fruit.  I have never seen it before.  Mine booms directly from the bark.....cauliflorous I think they technically call it.  The pink hue of your lighting makes this look not very much like a miracle fruit tree at all.

[phantomcrab]

I've never seen this on miracle fruit either. Mine flowers on the stems among the leaves.

[kh0110]

Leaves seem to be those of a Miracle Fruit tree, but here is what MF flowers look like when small:

[bsbullie]

I have seen the rising flowers in Thera's picture even a little darker in color but the general form is right...the growth in Karen's picture looks mighty strange.

[fruitlovers]

Karen, the miracle fruit does flower when very small, often at less than one foot. But those don't look like dulcificum flowers to me. Are you sure it is not a different species of synsepalum? Could it be subcordatum, which Jim West was also selling?

[KarenRei]

Karen, the miracle fruit does flower when very small, often at less than one foot. But those don't look like dulcificum flowers to me. Are you sure it is not a different species of synsepalum? Could it be subcordatum, which Jim West was also selling?

Unless there's been an error in my labelling system, I got this from coplantnut, from one of two shipments, both of actual fruit, labelled miracle fruit, which I consumed (although the first shipment had a much stronger effect than the second, don't know if there's a reason, or which batch this came from).

If it's not normal flowering behavior then... witches' broom?  pest damage?

[simon_grow]

Those look like new branches to me and your leaves do look like Miraclefruit. Your plant may need a bit of Iron. The little buds coming off your new branches are probably new leaves, my flowers usually appear in clusters.
Simon

[Tropicaliste]

I would say those are new branches. Mine suffered some damage this Winter and pushed out growth similar to yours. The flowers as the other folks talked about will come off the branches, tiny little white flowers that smell like perfume. No mistaking when your plant blooms because you will stick your nose in and inhale like the 70s it's that addicting. Lol.

[KarenRei]

I would say those are new branches. Mine suffered some damage this Winter and pushed out growth similar to yours. The flowers as the other folks talked about will come off the branches, tiny little white flowers that smell like perfume. No mistaking when your plant blooms because you will stick your nose in and inhale like the 70s it's that addicting. Lol.

I think you're right, tropicaliste - I checked closer and it looks like there may be a couple tiny leaves coming from them, like they're new branches that it grew before deciding to put leaves on them. I've just never seen it grow that way before.

[fyliu]

The pollen smell like bread dough to me. It's a pleasant scent.

What's weird is all the branches going in one direction. But that's how mine was when I had it in my room under artificial light. The flowers will abort if there's not enough light to bear fruit. That happened to my indoor plant in the winter. It held on to the flower buds into spring and the they dropped off. New buds flowered just fine after that.
These problems went away once I was able to put the plant into sun light.

[Chandramohan]

What you have are definitely shoots. I have been propagating Miracle fruit plants by airlayering with great success. As my bush puts out more than one terminal shoot and there are a lot of lateral branches, instead of pruning and wasting, I air layer and give them to my friends. Chandramohan