Curated playlist
Edible fruits
- MangoIn 1974, Filipino horticulturist Ramon Barba made mango trees flower on demand.
- ApricotIn Egypt, "bukra filmishmish" means "tomorrow in apricot season." It answers a rash promise.
- GrapeSo-called white grapes are actually green grapes that evolved from purple ones.
- GuavaStrawberry guava threatens more than 100 other plant species in Hawaii. Birds spread its seeds in their droppings.
- BananaAlmost every banana eaten in the Western world is a single seedless clone. That sameness is its greatest weakness.
- PineappleThe pineapple, Ananas comosus, once inspired a British aristocrat to crown a hothouse with a stone cupola 14 metres tall, built in the shape of the fruit. That aristocrat was John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, and the rooftop ornament is…
- QuinceThe quince, Cydonia oblonga, can grow as heavy as one kilogram and still be too tart to bite into. Its skin turns a bright golden yellow and its aroma carries, yet the flesh stays hard and astringent. It looks much like a pear and belongs…
- BreadfruitA single breadfruit tree can hand a household 200 or more grapefruit-sized fruits in one season, and it asks for very little care in return. That makes Artocarpus altilis one of the highest-yielding food plants known. It belongs to…
- FigThe fig, the fruit of a tree known to botanists as Ficus carica, may have been the first plant that people ever grew on purpose. The evidence is nine small figs found at Gilgal I, an early Neolithic village in the Jordan Valley, 13 km…
- Asimina trilobaAsimina triloba, the American pawpaw, is a small deciduous tree of eastern North American forests that bears a fruit with a custard-like texture. Ohio botanist William B. Werthner once wrote that the fruit is sweet and a little puckery,…