Okay - we have this large tree in the garden, I have no idea what it is...hoping some-one can ID (you guys are all so good at it!)
This is a picture of the leaves..
Mystery "fruit"
Here is a picture of the fruit. They are small and have a very slightly fuzzy skin. They are just starting to color up on the tree and go on for about 6 weeks or so.
Cut open they look quite lush, but they are as sour as all get out! Birds seem to like them though.
Hi Jen, any chance there are any flowers on the plant? Does the fruit taste like peanut butter?
Will go out in the morning to look for flowers, I have never seen them. It doesn't taste like peanut butter, it tastes more like putting a vitamin C tablet in your mouth and letting it disolve! It makes you salivate like crazy, and I only put a tiny bit in my mouth. The after taste isn't bad at all, but I hope that I am still here in the morning!
Thanks Jen, I guess we can rule out peanut butter fruit. Was there any kind of pit in the fruit, or is there any other seeds in it?
I will need a flower to place it in a Family.
You've got me thinking!
Nothing in those wierd 'plum' fruit? This will be fun!
Take a leaf off the tree and see if it bleeds milk. I'm wondering if it's a type of Ficus.
Also a close-up photo of the trees trunk may help.
No pit, however there seem to be a few very small white flat bits in the fruit. They feel hard when you squish them between your fingers. When you hold them up to a light they seem to have a tiny seed in them, or at least a dark bit that looks like maybe it's a seed. They are far too small to take a pic of - and any way I just droped it into the keyboard while I was holding it up to the light!
Lord knows what I have - I hope I haven't poisoned myself, LOL, I can still taste vitamin C!
Will do so in the morning, no light down there now.
Hey Dave and Carol, do you have the wild tomatoes popping up all over the place? We are covered in them since it rained!
Only cultivated tomatoes here Jen. Can't get Ficus out of my mind.
Want to try some of the Maui wild? Very small fruit, but very sweet. They are the only tomatoes I have had any luck with here. No insects (or sugs) seem to bother them - or is it that they produce so many that you can't tell - humm. Huge, rambling plants that will even grow in dry places once we have had just one rain.
I know why you think it might be ficus - the leaves do look awfully similiar to a weeping ficus (I don't know the real name). Just hope there are some flowers still on the tree.
Mahalo for your kokua.
Aloha,
This is a pic of the trunk of the mystery tree..
Here is a pic of the flowers - no wonder I never saw them before, they are very small.
The flowers grow along the branches, they have no smell..
Tried to take a pic with a penny as a measurement, sorry it's so blurry...
Hi Jen, does the tree bleed milk when you pluck off a leaf, and can you show the fruit on the tree?
How about Flacourtiaceae! Is that family common in Hawaii?
Yes Bignonia, the flowers of Jen's tree show that the plant is Dovyalis hebecarpa, the Ceylon Gooseberry.
Don't worry about the fruit Jen, it is edible and is good made into jam!
Well done, you guys have nailed it! My tree hasn't any spines though...
Don't worry Hetty, I made Frank taste it too - if we are going, we are going together! I had that taste on my tongue for hours, there isn't enough sugar in the world for me to make it into a jam! I bet you it's very high in C though - thats what it tasted like!
Many mahalo's, you guys are great!
Hi Jen, you probably have a grafted cultivar. As the trees are dioecious (male and female on separate plants) a female tree must have scions from a male tree budded onto it in order to get fruit off a single tree.