The Tropical Fruit Forum

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Chapada Diamantina is one of those Eugenias.

I wish mine grew better. It has had about 4 leaves for a whole year, and has not been able to really root out.

Very strange. I treated them little different than the rest of my Eugenias. 

I find it very hard to believe this is the same as Eugenia punicifolia. I was glad/surprised when I saw Helton said something in his video, I was already skeptical and I am in good company.

E. punicifolia (purchased as observa from Bellamy, came labeled as punicifolia, same thing). This plant is actually as old or older than my Diamantina, but it just goes to show that judging a plant by age means little most of the time, I improved my setup and gave these more light. What I'm doing here with my limited space is insane, but I have too much ambition, not enough sense, and not enough money to move out of mommy's house to go hog wild with plants stuffed in every room of my future house. But enough money to buy seeds and plants to potentially kill.



Chapada Diamantina. Ignore my Kadsura coccinea leaves... Yeah, the leaves are more mature... But these are the same species? Really? I think I agree with Helton. All these plants being punicifolia is a fairy tale unless this is a result of ancient cultivation or the like...





The leaves on Chapada Diamantina aren't even tapered like in punicifolia. Completely different leaf shape. Why is this identified as punicifolia? Is it REALLY?

As you can see despite its weird growth due to my admittedly sloppy conditions and my laziness to.prop it up, it's a very aesthetically pleasing plant. I don't even care if the fruit is shit. This is decorative houseplant  material at least. And fruit quality is the main thing I look for, but this neat plant looks nice and makes prominent fruit (compared to the leaf size) at one year of age at a small size. I consider it a winner even though it may not fulfill my main priority and only my secondary ones. If the fruit tastes good--which I doubt it will--then I'll recommend this one as a true winner.

However I do recognize that punicifolia is a Eugenia known to fruit young. But I still can't get over how different the leaves are.

Quote from: K-Rimes on July 21, 2025, 03:49:27 PM

Helton seems to be a real lover of the native fruits, and will of course be a cheerleader, not to mention differences in palate. What is disgusting to me maybe someone's favorite fruit. I don't like cloyingly sweet stuff, so a bunch of pouteria is just yuck to me. Joe seems to be a guy who appreciates sweet, not sour, which is something to note.

I am also diving deep into psidium as well, it has yielded easier growing, quicker bearing, and more prolific plants. I also figured I should deep dive into cultivars of guajava since I generally like it and think there is more to be found there.

I think this is pretty much hitting the nail on the head. My favorite Eugenia so far is Stipitata, and it is sour as heck, but some folks who have tried the very same fruit thought it was inedible. I do think we should be giving some of these trees multiple chances as well. A good example would be a Pickering mango I had over the last weekend.  It was easily the worst mango I've ever had... so insipid I had to spit it out. I had a mango off the same tree last year and it was phenomenal. I think as we try these new fruits I think we should be playing around with picking them early, trying them green or ripened on the counter vs letting them sit on the tree. I certainly enjoy my pitangatuba significantly more after letting them sit for a day or two after picking, even more so with the skin removed.

I agree. If you have seen Weird Explorer from his earlier videos, he constantly negatively reviewed fruit that was underripe or sometimes overripe. He's now really good about factoring that in, but Joe constantly mentions having to fight off the animals. Is he maybe trying these fruits too early? Surinam Cherry itself needs to basically as ripe as possible to be good. Still, even my chaotically grown container involucrata and uniflora made first fruits that demonstrated they had value.

Joe Hewitt on Facebook and Instagram has kept reporting Eugenias he's been able to fruit before most other people as being foul or sour.  Some are insisting they may need a few more years of maturity to produce better fruit. And sometimes I believe Mr. Hewitt has had very different and worse results than what even Helton reports.

Now according to him even E. subamplexicaulis is bad.

Are we receiving bad lineages of trees? Do these trees really need more maturity? Amount of sunlight (sun-->photosynthesis-->sugar)? Soil conditions (e.g. pawpaw famously can produce bleach/chlorine tasting fruit if under fertilized)?

Tangentially related, I've found Surinam cherry to be an acquired taste. It's understated how weird it can be with that bell pepper note. A few days ago I found a surprise black and ripe cherry on the tree I hadn't noticed. I got it right when it was ready to come off; and I started to find I'm starting to crave that weird taste. Like how one might first hate beer on their first time tasting it, but then come to crave " a cold one." Surinam cherry is like that.

Even if Eugenia is overall a bummer many of them make great aesthetic house plants in containers if you like tropical trees and many are beginner-level difficulty for growing.

My only guess would be overcrowding though you state otherwise... I think that was my problem with Musk strawberries, as I've never seen flowers on my plant either. My best guess it roots were too cramped. I found a spot to plant in the ground a couple weeks ago...maybe next year it provides. Though maybe there's something off with our climate, as I still expected to see FLOWERS at least given how long the runners were and they rooted into the ground themselves...

I intercepted the package from the mail carrier when I received mine but unfortunately my B. Pyriformis, Luwi, W. angustifolia did not survive and were molded over, the Luwi quite significantly... I'm getting some germination on B. Macrocarpa though thankfully. I hope at least some B. Lanceolata at least germinate as well... and I really hope my W. Sarawakensis are okay, they at least still felt hard.

Unfortunately a good portion of my seeds did not survive.

When my plants get bigger I'll also be selling cuttings. 

Yeah, these things have no real cold tolerance. 

Does anyone know what size they tend to fruit at?

Again, I'll stress how fast these things grow. In a tote/tub with other plants (e.g. eugenias and plinias and annonas etc) in tree pots this thing puts out roots so fast that it began aggressively invading some neighboring pots in their dirt through the side holes over the winter indoors where everything else barely got roots to the bottoms of theirs.

These oddball guavas are not like guajava. They generally have soft seeds that you barely notice. Their flavor is not "stinky" like guajava either, it's something quite different that I would suggest is more candy, sweet with a real bright undertone. I like guajava of course, all of them aside from the crunchy stuff, but I think these other species are worth a serious look at and definitely are top of mind for me to create a hybrid. The size of guajava + sweet sour of the "big yellow" would be top tier stuff.

A lot of them seem by their descriptions to be wonderful candidates for container culture and overwintering indoors. Seems I've been sleeping on this genus. How large in general do they need to be to fruit?

I have three seedlings of N. latifolia.  Somewhere on this forum it is written they don't root from cuttings, but I had one cutting root quickly (but die, I am terrible with cuttings!). 

They grow FAST with big roots. TOUGH plants.  I have them in about 5 gal containers now.  Be prepared to repot these sooner rather than later.  But don't believe there is tramadol in the roots, that came from cattle urine in the soil.

I have hope these can be made to fruit at a manageable size in a container.

I'm addicted to the weird plants, the plants of genii outside of the typical Eugenia and Plinia plants. I feel like there's a lot of potential to be discovered out there for fruiting houseplants or plants you can overwinter

edit:" it was an old post, missed it's from 2016, not needed, even that though post from 2016 was absolute trash and an attempt to 'intimidate' the admins so that user could feel powerful

https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/132/2/359/6056232

So it looks like the reason the original posters in this thread have had poor luck is that due to the elevations where this plant naturally occurs, it's actually more of a temperate plant.  I think for a long time people just assumed it was more tropical species; I know I did.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14219220-800-aztec-fruit-reappears-in-the-mountains-of-mexico/

Considering feijoa is a zone >= 7 plant and some of the eugenias having cold tolerance almost dipping into zone 8 I have been wondering what other highland fruits might survive in my zone, my current holy grails are unusual, especially tropical-tasting fruits not popular in cultivation perennial here. When considering other unusual fruits while zone pushing or otherwise growing in unusual climates, I think special attention should be paid to plants that form a caudex or rhizome... I had actually planted a Jarilla heterophylla a few weeks ago in the same planter as these tlanoxtles I was checking on when I realized last year's plants were returning... Now I will have to remove the Jarilla yet again so their thick roots don't tangle. It's really ironic I was trying to do this with the Jarilla when unbeknownst to myself I already succeeded in that very planter; Jarillas form rhizome that I suspect can be dug out seasonally if not left in overwinter...)

For a bit more info, earlier this late winter/ early spring (probably March or early April) I actually sprayed weed killer on the weeds that were covering the planter.  The tlanoxtle must not have been pushed up then, as the weedkiller did its thing.  I dug around to try to get the dead weed by the roots and I was really shocked the weeds formed such a ridiculous rhizomatous growth, which I now know was the Tlanoxtle, and my violent disturbances there did not kill the plant thankfully, and as per above I may have detached part of the plant and created a 3rd colony while rummaging around in the soil.

I cannot link some of the scientific articles regarding this plant directly, however if you type in the paper title into this (https://sci-hub.ru/) resource, it will often provide you the result you need.  I don't feel bad about this, it's a crime we pay for public resource and have all the gains, especially the actual knowledge itself, be so privatized.

Uhh.... my Lycianthes moziniana I planted outside in a planter came back up this late spring!??? No protection, nothing, I just let it die and figured that was that, I'd try again another year... but it's actually perennial like maypop?!  Two plants actually, or three, unsure if the root spread.

Doing some research... Lycianthes moziniana (Solanaceae): An Underutilized Mexican Food Plant with "New" Crop Potential (1993)

The plant produces a thickened, perennial tap-root with a light orange-colored epidermis, and reaches to a depth of 1 m or more (Fig. 5). The root has buds surrounding the subterranean collar that give rise to the aerial herbaceous stems. These stems, in turn, develop thickened portions where they originate from the root, points from  which they are easily detached. Once detached,  these thickened stems become vegetative propagules. It is suggested that this characteristic is an adaptation to the agrohabitat to facilitate the plant's dispersion and propagation by means of the mechanical action of the plow. Seeds planted outdoors in pots at Chapingo, Mexico (altitude 2242 m) did not flower during the first growing season (summer 1984) although there was considerable thickening of the taproot. It may be inferred that flowering is postponed until the second growth year.

A brief online search shows that this is a persistent problem, getting this to flower -- and it seems to be all people not getting flowers the first year.

HOWEVER, regarding pollination:

Little is known of the pollination biology of L. moziniana and the other species of the genus Lycianthes (Nee 1986). Although pollinators were not observed, there is a high rate of fruit set. Of the five stamens, four dehisce before the fifth, the filament of which elongates so that the apical pores of the dehiscing anthers are near the receptive surface of the stigma (Fig. 4). This may be a selfing mechanism, which suggests that these plants may be facultatively autogamous.