Garcinia madruno seeds, rare tropical fruit

Garcinia madruno seeds

Garcinia madruno belongs to the family of the Clusiaceae. It is native to South and Central America, for example in Costa Rica and Panama.
G. madruno grows as a tree and reaches a height of 6 to 19 m in its natural habitat. The tree produces a gummy like yellow latex. The leaves are elliptic and dark green on the upper side. The bottom side is a little lighter. The leaves get 8 cm long and 3 cm wide. They are glossy and leathery.
G. madruno is diecious that means that there are male and female individuals having only male or female flowers. One needs always two plants for reproduction. The flowers are yellowish and have a strong, pleasant odor. They stand in the leaf axilla. From the flower develops a yellow fruit that resembles the lemon. But in comparison to a lemon, the skin of the fruit of G. madruno is more shriveled. The fruit is kind of elliptic and has a nipple on each end. The fruit can be eaten. They taste fresh with a note of citrus. But one should not harvest the fruits when they are unripe. The unripe fruit is quite acid and when the fruits are harvested before they are ripe, they won’t get ripe afterwards. Due to that reason one does not find the fruit in European supermarkets. In its native countries one produces jam and jelly from the fruit of G. madruno.
In the white pulp of the fruit there are 1 to 3 seeds that are 2-3 cm long

Cultivation
The seeds of G. madruno do not need a pretreatment. They can be planted directly about 1 cm deep into the substrate. At a temperature of about 26 to 28 °C and constantly moist substrate germination occurs after 3 to 8 weeks. The tropical plant likes a very humid air and is not winter hardy.