SPANISH PLUMS
IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE
If you ride down a road anyplace in this area
two trees are more eye-catching than all others, both planted around people's homes:
First, there's the awesomely crimson-blossomed Poinciana I told you about last week, and;
second, there's a fruit tree with perfectly leafless branches very heavily loaded with
oval, green, inch-long fruits. You can see a typical one of these below:
That's a close-up of three green fruits, which will turn yellow upon maturity, below:
Mexicans call the tree "Ciruelo," which translates to "plum," but
the fruit is unlike what North Americans think of as a plum. In other parts of Latin
America it goes by the name of Jocote. In English we call it Spanish Plum, Mombin, and
other names. There's a species with both yellow- and red-fruited forms, Spondias
purpurea, and there's another closely related species, Spondias mombin, which
produces only yellow fruits. In Spondias purpurea flowers and fruits occur along
the stem, while in Spondias mombin they're clustered at the end of the branch.
Therefore, what we have above is the yellow-fruited form of Spondias purpurea.
These are members of the Cashew Family, in which we also find mangos, sumacs and Poison
Ivy. Spondias mombin is native from Mexico to northern South America but is planted
worldwide in the tropics.
One reason the species is so popular is that its fruit can be eaten raw, used in
preserves, made into jellies and, maybe most popular, used as the base for a sweet drink.
I find its taste OK, but not to be compared with something like a fig or an apple. The
trees ubiquity here may rest mainly on the fact that it doesn't need much care and thrives
on marginal soils. One weakness is that it doesn't tolerate frosts.
Spanish Plum has been grown for so long that several horticultural varieties have
emerged. The red-fruited form seems to receive top billing on the Internet, but the
yellow-fruited one is much more common here. Also there are purple ones. Don Gonzalo says
they taste pretty much the same.
You might enjoy reading the report of Allison Miller, a graduate student at Washington
University in St. Louis, who traveled through Central America studying domesticated
Spanish Plum populations. Allison found populations adapted for service in orchards,
around people's homes, as living fences, cultivated in forests, as well as a few wild
populations. Her interesting story, with pictures, is at http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/jocote/jocote.shtml.
FROM THE JUNE 22, 2007 NEWSLETTER:
SPANISH PLUMS ARE RIPE
Jalpan's Spanish Plums are finally maturing and I'm eating my share. Last weekend
as I hiked through a village in the valley below San Juan, Zoyapilca, I met two old women
and a young man coming down the road, each carrying two buckets filled to their brims with
Spanish Plums. On my walk to the market there's one place where the sidewalk is
dangerously slick with squashed, fallen plums. Three plums are shown in my hand below:
Though Spanish Plums belong to an entirely different plant family from northern plums,
you can see why they're called plums. They look and taste like northern plums, and
similarly can be eaten raw and made into preserves. However, note the large, hard, white,
blocky seed, which is very unlike the northern plum's lens- shaped pit. Spanish Plums
belong to the mostly tropical Cashew Family, in which we find not only cashew and mango
trees but also sumac, Poison Oak and Poison Ivy.
Here people call the fruit Ciruela, which means plum, and they always tell you
that there are two kinds, a yellow one and a red one. So, this is the yellow-fruited form
of SPONDIAS PURPUREA.
Nowadays the trees' pinnately compound, walnut-tree- like leaves have emerged and the
plentiful yellow fruits set amidst fresh, emerald green leaves are very pretty. An
infusion of the leaves, by the way, is effective in treating viral herpes infections, as
reported at http://www.cravoecanela.com/Herpes_2.html. |