Fruits of the tropics
The great fruit trees of the warm world — the king and queen of fruit, the custard apples, and the fruit that grows on its own trunk.
- 01
Trees№ 2804 minMango: The King of Tropical Fruit and a Tree of a Thousand Kinds
The most important fruit of the tropics after banana — a huge long-lived evergreen with thousands of named varieties, a poison-ivy cousin, and a deep cultural place.
- 02
Trees№ 0254 minAvocado: The Fatty Fruit Built for Animals That Vanished
A rich, oily fruit with a giant seed adapted to extinct megafauna, a strange split-timed flowering, a thirst that has made it controversial, and one clone behind most of the crop.
- 03
Trees№ 1423 minDurian and Mangosteen: The King and Queen of Tropical Fruit
The notorious spike-covered fruit that smells of everything and tastes sublime, and its supposed cooling counterpart — two icons of Southeast Asian forest and orchard.
- 04
Trees№ 0564 minBreadfruit and Jackfruit: Giant Fruits of the Fig Family
Two Artocarpus trees that feed the tropics with starchy multiple-fruits — one that carried Captain Bligh to mutiny, one that grows the largest fruit borne by any tree.
- 05
Trees№ 2744 minLychee and Longan: Jewel-Fruited Trees of the Soapberry Family
Subtropical evergreens bearing translucent aril fruit, kin to the maples, that flower only after a cool dry winter — and one of which carries a genuine poisoning risk.
- 06
Trees№ 0794 minCherimoya and Annonas: The Custard Fruits That Must Be Hand-Pollinated
Soft, creamy tropical fruit — cherimoya, soursop, sugar apple — that Mark Twain called deliciousness itself, relatives of the pawpaw, often pollinated by hand because their beetle is missing.
- 07
Trees№ 4113 minSapotes: The Chewing-Gum Tree and Its Chocolate-Pudding Cousins
A confusing group of unrelated tropical fruits sharing one name — including the sapodilla that gave the world chewing gum, and the black sapote that tastes of chocolate mousse.
- 08
Trees№ 2353 minJaboticaba: The Tree That Fruits on Its Own Trunk
A Brazilian tree that skips the branches and flowers straight from its bark, so its dark grape-like fruit erupt directly along the trunk — a startling sight, a delicious fruit, and a lesson in cauliflory.
- 09
Trees№ 1143 minCupuaçu: Cacao's Amazonian Cousin
A close relative of the cacao tree whose large brown pods hold a fragrant, creamy white pulp beloved across the Amazon — eaten as fruit and pressed into 'cupulate', a chocolate made without cocoa.
- 10
Trees№ 2583 minLangsat and Duku: The Translucent Fruits of the Mahogany Family
Southeast Asian trees bearing clusters of little tan-skinned fruits that peel to reveal translucent, sweet-sour segments like tiny grapefruit — a beloved tropical treat from a surprising family.