Garcinia intermedia

What to Eat

Edible parts: Fruit

The fruit can be eaten raw, though they are sour, and are also used to make jam. The fruit have a sweet taste.

Where to Find It

It is a tropical plant. It grows in humid forests from sea level to 1,200 m altitude in Central America.

Andes, Asia, Belize, Brazil, Central America*, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, North America, Pacific, Panama, Philippines, Puerto Rico, SE Asia, South America, USA, West Indies,

How to Identify

An erect tree. It grows 5-12 m tall. It can be 30 m tall. It has yellow latex. The leaves are simple and opposite and narrowly oval.. The leaf blades are 8-25 cm long by 3-9 cm wide. The flowers are clustered in the axils of the leaves. They are greenish white. The fruit are 3-4 cm long. The fruit are oval and yellowish-orange. The flesh is white. There is one seed.

How to Grow

A plant of the warm, humid tropics at elevations up to 1,200 metres. Succeeds in full sun or partial shade. A fairly fast-growing plant, it can commence flowering and fruiting when only 2 - 3 years old from seed. An androdioecious species with some trees producing only male flowers and other trees producing hermaphrodite flowers.

Propagation: Seed - it has a short viability and should not be allowed to dry out. Sow the seed fresh in a partially shaded position in a nursery seedbed. Seeds do not germinate immediately, waiting instead for several months - often well into the rainy season - before initiating growth.

Other Uses

The bark is rich in tannin. The heartwood is rose-yellow, hard, medium-heavy, coarse-textured, with numerous gum ducts, but tough, strong, easy to work, fairly durable. It is valued for construction because it is nearly immune to insects. It is also used for tool handles, fence posts, and temporary railroad ties. We do not have any more information on the wood of this species, but a general description of the wood for trees in the Americas which were formerly considered to be in the genus Rheedia is as follows:- The heartwood is dark yellow-brown, grayish- or pinkish-brown, merging gradually into the sapwood; surfaces are sometimes specked with resinous exudations. The texture is medium to coarse; the grain straight to irregular and roey; luster medium to rather low; it is free from discernible odour or taste. Species in Surinam are rated durable to attack by decay fungi and fairly resistant to dry wood termites. Species in Colombia are resistant to a brown-rot fungus but not the white-rot in a laboratory assay. Under field conditions the wood was susceptible to decay and attack by insects. It dries rapidly, but is reported to be moderately difficult to air season, tending to warp and check. Reports on workability vary with species from moderate to high resistance to cutting to machining fairly well; reports on ease of finishing are also variable. The wood is used for purposes such as furniture, flooring (quarter sawn), heavy construction, and general carpentry.

Garcinia intermedia is a species of tropical American tree which produces edible fruit. In English it is known as the lemon drop mangosteen (a name it shares with the closely related and similarly tasting Garcinia madruno) or sometimes monkey fruit. In Spanish it is called mameyito, though it is known as jorco in Costa Rica. In the Philippines, it is known as berba. In Portuguese it is called achachairu. The name achachairu is also applied to Garcinia humilis, another species native to Bolivia with larger, round or egg-shaped fruit (see Achachairu). G. humilis has been commercialized in Australia under the name Achacha.

Production

Plants produce in about 5 years.

Other Information

Fruit have a sweet taste.

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