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Tropical Fruits

Mimusops elengi

13 years ago

Anyone have any knowledge about "Spanish Cherry" Mimusops elengi? I guess I had bought the seeds from Tradewinds a few years ago, planted and forgot about them. Now I have a nice 2 foot tree labeled Spanish Cherry.

It seems it is a large tree with fragrant flowers (a plus) but the fruit while edible is not what it is grown for. Anyone know if it tastes good?

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Comments (5)

murahilin
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I have never tried it myself but I found a few things online about its taste. Hope it helps.

The first one described the fruit as "ovoid orange-red berry
with floury, yellow, edible but insipid pulp".

Dr. Chiranjit Parmar said of the fruit:
"It is a small to large evergreen tree growing in warmer parts of India. It is a
relative of sapota. We call it Maulsiri in Hindi. The old Sanskrit name is
Bakul. It is planted in gardens and along the roads and is valued for its
fragrant flowers which are used for making garlands. The flowers retain their
fragrance for quite long even after drying. So these are also sometimes use for
stuffing pillows.

Fruits are edible and also used for preserves and pickles. The kernels yield a
fatty oil which was once used for lighting and cooking. Flowers are used for
the preparation of an Otto used in perfumes.

The leaves are used as fodder.

Bark and fruits are used in diarrhea and dysentery. Dried flowers are used as
snuff and pounded seed used in suppositories for constipation.

The wood is hard and used for so many purposes."

Oscar from www.fruitlovers.com said:
"saw an Elengi about 10 years ago at the Ho'omaluhia Botanical
Garden on Oahu. The tree was only about 8 feet tall then and had a
lot of fruits on it. The fruits were seedy and tasted similar to
eggfruit-canistel (Elengi is in Sapotaceae family), but not as good
as eggfruit in my opinion. Fruit was a lot smaller than an eggfruit.
Here is what Marie Neal says about it in her book In Gardens of
Hawaii, p. 671:
Elengi, Pogada. Mimusops elengi. A rather large evrgreen tree with
inconspicuous milky sap and with young growth, flower stems, and
calyx rusty-downy, has smooth, dark green, oval wavy-edged, short-
pointed leaves, 2 to 6 inches long, their stems .75 inch long. The
tree is a native of Malaya and Malaysia. Two to six
flowers,clustered at leaf axils are white, fragrant, about .5 inch
in diameter, on stems about .5 inch long, the calyx eight-parted,
the corolla also eight parted and each petal two-lobed, the whole
corolla falling off as a star lobed ring. The eight stames alternate
with eight petal-like sterile stamens. The fruit is ovoid, about an
inch long, green to orange, and has one dark seed within the yellow
pulp, which is too astringent to eat. Where native, all parts of the
tree are used: leaves, bark, flowers, fruits, and roots for
mecicine, floweres for perfume, the hard reddish wood for boats,
cabinet work, canes and other purposes. A variety with shorter,
narrower leaves (var. parvifolia) is a handsome, medium-sized tree,
which though a native of rain forests in Malaysia and Melanesia,
also may endure low and dry areas. A species with larger leaves and
larger yellow, glovose fruit with milder pulp (M. commersonii) has
also been introduced to Hawaii. A South African wind-resistant tree
(M. caffra) has small leaves, widest near the tip, 2.5 by .7 inches,
the petiole aobut half an inch long. Many flowers develop near
branch ends; fuits are scarlet, 1 inch long, one seeded.
After reading Neal's description it seems that perhaps what i saw
was M. commersonii and not M. elengi. I dont remember the fruit
being astringent, and it had several seeds inside. But my memory
could be wrong."
red_sea_me
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I believe an infusion of the leaf or bark is used to strengthen you gums and teeth too. These are suprisingly tough plants, I have some from seed that have completely dried out on multiple occasions, handled below 32F above 100F and survived being grown in just a few inches of soil. They also handle root pruning well for those trying to grow in pots. I have some that are still potted and one group having their trunks braided and one in the ground doing very well. I cant wait for flowers.

-Ethan
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Geez, my bad. Plummy, you're right, it was a Garcinia (probably G. xanthocymus). Had meant to post the ross sapote, but now I'm not sure if I had taken a photo of it, so here's a canistel (Pouteria campechiana)instead: Here's the mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota), Lisa: An immature Chrysophyllum cainito (star apple, caimito) fruit: A giant miracle fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum)-apparently it's only the leaves that are larger than the usual type, not the fruit: Finally, a before and after shot of my cacao (Theobroma cacao) and cupuassu (Theobroma grandiflora). Shot in Chicago, April 2005 (cacao on the left, Herrania in the middle-it later died-cupuassu on the right): The fruits that both the cacao and cupuassu came from. Cupuassu (March 2005): Cupuassu opened up: Cacao (March 2005) The same cacao and cupuassu today (Aug. 2006) in West Palm Beach. The cacao is the larger one and the cupuassu is the smaller one to the right. My observation is that the growth rate of cupuassu under the same conditions is at least twice as slow as that of its cacao cousin: Marcelo
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ohiojay
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
By the decription of the fruit taste, sounds like it is right up your alley Sheehan!!!

Ethan could make a beer out of it...guaranteed to clean you out.
rayandgwenn
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Maybe I bought it for the fragrant flowers? I guess I will keep it, plant it somewhere on the edge of the property.

Thanks for the info.
kutush17_hotmail_com
12 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
do u know where i can byu the plant

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