pulp photos on Flickr

The FIRST is the Grumichama. It is in full flower today and also tomorrow. The fruit is lovely. A bit like black cherries with a slight wood taste. There is also a yellow variety. The perfume is very distinctive and I just can't describe it. This morning there were a lot of bees visiting, both honey bee and native bee. Underneath there is some information I put with a grumichama flower on Flickr 20 months ago. This info came from an American source.

This is a small shrub-like tree that is a tropical fruit originally from the Amazon. A few times a year it breaks out in these magfnificent white flowers with a musky distinctive smell. The fruit is similar to a black cherry, but delicate and sweet.

An often admired but still very minor fruiting member of the Myrtaceae, the grumichama, Eugenia brasiliensis Lam. (syn. E. dombeyi Skeels), is also called grumixama, grumichameira, or grumixameira in Brazil, and sometimes Brazil cherry elsewhere.

Grumichama -- The grumichama (Eugenia brasiliensis) is more cherry-like than many so-called "cherries" but handicapped by small size, apical sepals and large seeds.

Description -- The highly ornamental tree is slender, erect, usually to 25 or 35 ft (7.5-10.5 m) high, short-trunked and heavily foliaged with opposite, oblong-oval leaves 3 1/2 to 5 in (9-16 cm) long, 2 3/8 in (5-6 cm) wide, with recurved margin; glossy, thick, leathery, and minutely pitted on both surfaces. They persist for 2 years. New shoots are rosy. The flowers, borne singly in the leaf axils, are 1 in (2.5 cm) wide; have 4 green sepals and 4 white petals, and about 100 white stamens with pale-yellow anthers. The long-stalked fruit is oblate, 1/2 to 3/4 in (1.25-2 cm) wide; turns from green to bright-red and finally dark-purple to nearly black as it ripens, and bears the persistent, purple- or red-tinted sepals, to 1/2 in (1.25 cm) long, at its apex. The skin is thin, firm and exudes dark-red juice. The red or white pulp is juicy and tastes much like a true subacid or sweet cherry except for a touch of aromatic resin. There may be 1 more or less round, or 2 to 3 hemispherical, hard, light-tan or greenish-gray seeds to 1/2 in (1.25 cm) wide and half as thick.

Origin and Distribution -- he grumichama is native and wild in coastal southern Brazil, especially in the states of Parana and Santa Catarina. It is cultivated in and around Rio de Janeiro, also in Paraguay. A specimen was growing in Hope Gardens, Jamaica, in 1880 and a tree was planted in the Botanical Gardens, Singapore, in 1888, fruited in 1903. It has long since vanished from both of these locations. An attempt to grow it in the Philippines in the early 1920's did not meet with success. Neither did a trial in Israel. An early introduction, perhaps by Don Francisco de Paula Marin in 1791, was made in Hawaii and the tree was adopted into numerous local gardens.

The United States Department of Agriculture received seeds from Mauritius in 1911 (S.P.I. #30040); plants and seeds from Bahia, Brazil, in 1914 (S.P.I. #36968), and more seeds from Mauritius in 1922 (S.P.I. #54797). Plants were set out at the Plant Introduction Station in Miami and prospered. Other plantings were made in California where it seemed even better adapted but has apparently disappeared. The United States Department of Agriculture raised seedlings at Puerto Arturo, Honduras, and transferred some plants to the Lancetilla Experimental Garden at Tela in 1926. They flourished there and flowered and fruited well.

Over the years there have been mild efforts to encourage interest in the virtues of the grumichama in Florida, mainly because of the beauty and hardiness of the tree and the pleasant flavor of the fruit but the sepals are a nuisance and there is too little flesh in proportion to seed for the fruit to be taken seriously.

Climate -- The grumichama is subtropical, surviving temperatures of 26º F (-3.33º C) in Brazil. It is better suited to Palm Beach than to southern Florida. In Hawaii, the tree fruits best from sea-level to an altitude of no more than 300 ft (90 m).

Culture -- The grumichama is of slow growth when young unless raised in a mixture of peat moss and sand and then given a thick layer of peat moss around the roots when setting out, and kept heavily fertilized. In Hawaii, it has taken 7 years to reach 7 ft. Fruiting begins when the plants are 4 to 5 years old.

Season -- The tree is regarded as remarkable for the short period from flowering to fruiting. In Florida, it has been in full bloom in late April and loaded with fruits 30 days later. The crop ripens quickly over just a few days. In Hawaii, the trees bloom and fruit from July to December, with the main crop in the fall. Trees in Brazil vary considerably in time of flowering and fruiting so that the overall season extends from November to February.

Food Uses -- Fully ripe grumichamas are pleasant to nibble out-of-hand. in Hawaii, half-ripe fruits are made into pie, jam or jelly.

Food Value Per 100 g of Edible Portion*

Moisture 83.5 g

Protein 0.102 g

Fiber 0.6 g

Ash 0.43 g

Calcium 39.5 mg

Phosphorus 13.6 mg

Iron 0.45 mg

Carotene 0.039 mg

Thiamine 0.044 mg

Riboflavin 0.031 mg

Niacin 0.336 mg

Ascorbic Acid 18.8 mg

*Analyses made in Honduras.

Medicinal Uses -- The bark and leaves contain 1.5% of essential oil. The leaf or bark infusion–1/3 oz (10 g) of plant material in 10 1/2 oz (300 g) water-is aromatic, astringent, diuretic and taken as a treatment for rheumatism at the rate of 2 to 4 cups daily, in Brazil.

Pulp Mill by UrbexNW