Flowers, Fragrances and Fruit - Plant of the Day – Jackfruit Tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus)

Have you seen the Winter Flower Show?  The gardening staff at MMC have done another outstanding job of putting together a flower show in the MMC Sunken Garden room.  As usual, the colors are vibrant and the smells are floral bouquets of sweetness.  If you haven’t attended one of the flower shows here, you are really missing some spectacular experiences!

In the North Garden, I examined the new growth on the very large and very old common fig tree (Ficus carica).  The pollarding process continues to encourage trunk expansion while keeping the canopy short.  If you haven’t seen this tree, you should stop in to see it – it is a very unusual looking tree in a handsome sort of way.

Tahitian Gooseberry

Cotton Plant

The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) still has multiple growing cacao pods on the tree.  The cotton plant (Gossypium hirsutum) has set a new flower head that will open soon.  Until I started my volunteer work here, I had not realized that this plant produces such a beautiful flower!  The Tahitian Gooseberry (Philanthus acidus) has also produced some savory looking fruit.

While conversing with another volunteer, I learned something new about the golden pathos plant used for ground cover around the conservatory.  When growing level across the ground, the leaves of this plant are generally small.  But when this plant is able to grow upwards as a vine, the leaves on the plant get bigger and bigger. 

The Plant of the Day is the Jackfruit tree (Artocarpus heterophyllus).  The jackfruit tree can be seen just inside the entrance of the North Garden.  Able to grow up to 20 meters high, this tree is typically found in lowland tropical or near-tropical forests. It is thought to originate in India, but can now be found in Malyasia, China, the Phillipines, East Indies, India and Africa.

Jackfruit

Jackfruit is one of the largest tree fruits in the world, exhibiting ‘cauliflory’ – where fruit is produced on the trunk or main branches.  Each ‘fruit’ is an aggregate of smaller fruits.  Seeds can be roasted and consumed, or, ground into flour for baking.  The ripe fruit itself can be eaten raw.  Some equate the taste to that of bananas.  The jackruit tree produces many products used by human communities.  Sticky latex from this tree can be used as a crude cement.  The timber is strong and termite-proof.  Smaller branches can be used for fuel.  Dyes can be produced from chips of this wood to create orange-red colors for the robes of Buddhist monks.

One visitor to the conservatory mentioned that back in his hometown in Africa, this tree drops its fruits at midnight.  The folks in his village would go out to collect the fruit at 2-3am.  They did this because the ripe stage for the jackfruit is very short.  They would then eat parts of the fruit and roast the seeds which he said are very delicious!

Other sources indicate that the fruit can be cut up into pieces, fried and eaten like potato chips.  Other food options include making the fruit into jam, fermenting the fruit into an alcoholic drink or even feeding it to livestock.