The Tropical Fruit Forum

Took a trip to Puerto Vallarta to find Lucs garcinia trees growing in their natural habitat. Success! Also had the chance to meet with Luc and he was kind enough to bring fresh fruit to my hotel lobby for me to sample.

Taste report: Wow it's good! I had high expectations but it exceeded those. It's hard to describe but best I can say is like a mangosteen mixed with a mango. Nice blend of sweet with some tart. It's very good and worth making space for. Chop something down if you need to. In the area where I found the trees they need to fight among other nearby large trees to reach the sunlight so their growth habit is straight up and the scaffold branches can be very high up.

Luc: thank you for making the effort to meet me and bring me fruit. Luc is a good man and when this fruit is officially named it should be named after him for all of his efforts to spread this fruit all over the world. Luc will forever be remembered for this fruit and his name should live on with it. Luc mentioned we are getting closer to getting the  official name for the species. If it wasn't for Luc, there may not be anybody studying this species.

Raul ( Raulglezruiz ) also brought me a whole bag of the fruit and even scions to me even though he and I were very busy in my short time there. Raul thank you for your efforts! Much appreciated and I should have more time next visit.

I've attached photos of Luc's garcinia growing wild as well as the fruit Luc brought me.

Came  across an interesting article published in the Vallarta Botanical Garden newsletter regarding Luc's Garcinia. Under the article on Page 9, there's a photo of a few gentlemen standing in front of one of the trees. Seems they thought it was G. intermedia at first but it's likely a separate species. Too many differences besides just the larger fruit size.

http://www.vbgardens.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/leaflet-feb-2017.pdf

"We are constantly amazed at the complexity and diversity
of nature, especially here in the tropics. The more we
study, the more we realize what we don’t know! Take for
example Garcinia intermedia, a beautiful, edible, fruiting
tree that grows naturally in the Garden’s forest preserve
and is also represented by a specimen in the VBG’s Vallarta
Conservatory of Orchids and Native Plants.
This past month, a team of researchers representing
the  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México  and Yale
University visited our Garden on a hunt for  Garcinia
intermedia. They shared with us that the specimens
they encountered in the vicinity of Mismaloya Canyon
(between the VBG and downtown Puerto Vallarta) have
distinct morphological features, most noticeably larger
than normal fruit, that may indicate they are their own
separate species. The plants they encountered occurring
wildly in the VBG’s forest preserve have these same
characteristics. The researchers will need to go back to
their herbaria to further analyze their samples, both under
the microscope and the DNA sequencer, but their hope is
that the data will back up their hunch. We hope so too as
this would mean the description of a new “microendemic”
plant for our region—something totally unique to our
coast of Jalisco!"

Neighbor has a tree with fruit ripening. No idea what variety

If anybody has seedling(s) let me know. Thanks!

Hey all, I'm in S. FL and am looking to buy a Mexican Mangosteen (Luc's) tree.  Anybody have for sale? Thanks!