Oh my gosh, Lisa!! Those are the coolest looking trees!! How long from seed to fruit? They look absolutely like no other tree I have ever seen. What does the fruit taste like? It looks as if you'll have enough Jaboticaba fruit for a while. Love them!! :)

Leona

I don't remember exactly when we started them, but I'm going to say this tree is probably about 15 years old from seed. It takes at least 10 years to see your first fruit.

They have a tough outer skin which is bitter, but if you gently pierce it with your teeth, you can then squeeze the inner pulp into your mouth. It is pinkish white and watery and has one seed. The taste is kind of like grape jelly.

The trouble is they all come ripe about the same time and don't last very long. The birds love them, and because of the way they grow, you can't very well bag the fruit, so we end up losing a lot of them .

We've got the same thing going on with our Starfruit right now. It's so loaded all the branches are bent to the ground, and some even broke. We've been selling whatever extra fruit I can find that is unpecked at the farmer's market, but most of it has been "birdified".

What yummy looking fruit! I have heard that they will fruit 5 or 6 times a year once established. My little tree is just 5' tall but I hope to see fruit next year. What size was yours when it first fruited?

Nice Lisa!!! Weeks?!?, If I was there, just give me a few hours. =)

Better get here fast, Eggo! I picked about 10 pounds yesterday to take to the market. There's still plenty on the tree, but the birds were not happy that I was raiding their stash.

I did some searching, and it appears you are right, Lady. An established tree can give several crops per year, excellent! There's already more flowers coming out on one of ours, and there's still fruit on the tree.

Another thing I found out is that they fruit much better if you have more than one, since cross-pollination seems to be important. Also it is recommended that the soil be mounded up so that the roots are slightly higher than the surrounding soil level, to allow for drainage. I didn't know any of this, so it's just dumb luck that we planted 2 trees side-by-side on the slope of a mound!

I don't remember exactly how big they were when we got the first fruit, maybe 6 or 8 ft.? They're at least 10' now.

If you want to read more about their requirements, I won't list all the links, just go here:

Here is a link that might be useful: Dogpile results for jaboticaba

Where I live, 3 degrees south latitude in Brazil if the jaboticaba gets plenty of water it fruits several times per year. In the southern part of Brazil, principally Minas Gerais I have heard of people making ditches around the trees and constantly irrigating them to increase the number of crops per year. I had a real nice tree at my house in Fort Lauderdale which was in the ground there for over 20 years and was probably 10 years old or so when I bought it. The ones for sale here produce fruit quite small I think they may be air layered or grafted. There are also several varieties of Jaboticabas. I remember seeing some giant trees once in the mountains on the border of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states.

dk

I'm here Lisa, where are they? Am I too late? LOL just kidding.
I read of a white jaboticaba, have you ever seen any of this in Hawaii?

Ohhhh.... so sorry Eggo, you missed them :-(
Actually, I'm eating the last handful right now. There's still a couple of small ones sticking to the branches, but the birds have gotten most of those already.

I think I sold about 13 lbs. of them. The most common reaction was "what IS this, a grape or a cherry?", and when offered a sample most people decided it was too much work for too little reward (have to spit out the seeds and skin), even thought they are very sweet and flavorful. A few, though, knew what they were, mostly people who had been to Brazil, I think. One told me that Bebel Gilberto had recorded a song called "Jaboticaba". I'll have to go find that one.

I've never seen a white one, but apparently there are 4 different species that are grown commercially in Brazil. I think this one is Myrciaria cauliflora, and they really are black when they're completely ripe.

Meanwhile, my husband just told me the rambutans are almost ripe (I hadn't noticed, there's not many). I sure hope they're sweeter than the single fruit I picked last year!

Very, very nice, Lisa! The few times I've come across this tree, it never seems to be in fruit, so seeing one literally draped with the berries is a delight. Thanks for sharing!

Marcelo

Rambutans too Lisa!!! =)
I find some people find longans and lychees as too much work or too odd to be removing the skin from a berry like fruit. Oh well.