Prickly Pear or Barbary Fig - a tree like cactus

 The Prickly Pear or Barbary Fig is a tree like cactus that is widely grown for its edible "tuna" fruits in semi-arid regions around the world.  The images in this post come from central Spain in the Extremadura region.

 The tasty yet somewhat seedy fruits of this tree-cactus are a bit of a challenge to pick since both the leaves and fruits are covered with both pointy, thorny spikes and small, fine prickly "hairs".  If you don´t what to get a hand full of these bothersome barbs you had better come prepared.  A thick set of gloves with wrist protectors is one way to go about picking them.  Then comes the challenge of riding the fruit of their thorns and hairs.  One way to go about it is to place several dozen in a gunny sack, get them wet and then agitate the sack for 5-10 minutes.  This can be done by hanging the sack from a branch or bean and then rocking the sack back and forth with your hand.  In this way the fruits end of cleaning each others prickles off.

 To eat the fruit one has to first peel back the skin.  One way that I like to do this is to slice off both ends, make a cut down one side and then peel the rest off starting from the cut and removing the rest of the peel in one piece leaving the tasty interior ready to be eaten as is.

Custard Apple "Cherimoya" (Annona cherimola)

The Cherimoya or Custard-apple (species: Annona cherimola) is an edible fruit tree native to the Andes mountain region of South America. It is now widely planted as a fruit tree. The images in this post are from the south of Spain near the city of Málaga.

The leaves of this spreading tree are about 3-5 inches long with a simple ovate shape, pinnate venation and entire margins. They are also a bit warped.

The fruit of the Cherimoya is irregular and "heart" shaped in its own unique way. The ripe fruits are green with a smooth skin and a distinct pattern (see image below).

The flesh is a creamy color and quite soft and smooshy when ripe making it easy to eat with a spoon.
The seeds are roughly almond shaped and black. They are fairly easy to spit out when you get one or several in your spoonful of the soft sweet flesh.

The bark on younger trees is smooth but rough and cracked on older trees like the one below.

Hybrid Strawberry tree - Arbutus x andrachnoides

The Arbutus x andrachnoides is a naturally occuring hybrid of the Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) and the Greek Strawberry tree (Arbutus andrachne) that is found in Greece and Cyprus. The pictures in this post however come from a tree in the Madrid Botanical Garden.

The leaves and flowers of this hybrid are quite similar to those of the "Madrono" (Strawberry tree) but the bark is quite different. For one it is quite flacky and the outer brown, paper thin layer peels off to reveal a lime green with brownish patches, smooth layer beneath.


This hybrid is grown mainly for ornamental purposes and not as a fruit bearing tree as it is not known to produce nearly as well as the Arbutus unedo.

White Sapote - Casimiroa edulis

I came across this White Sapote tree (scientific name:Casimiroa edulis or zapote Blanco in Spanish). The leaves of the tree palmate with pronounced darker gree veins on the newer leaves. The leaflets were about 4-5 inches long and had smooth margins.
I believe this tree is fairly representative of a full size tree. It stood about 5-6 meters (20-25 feet) tall. I don´t think that I would have been able to identify the tree had it not been for the sign at the base that gave its identity away. According to the sign this tree is native to Southern Mexico and central America.
The fruit of the White Sapote is a "drupe" that measure about 4-6 cm in diameter with a dark green exterior until ripe.
If this tree was at all representative of its species they do not seem to produce an abundance of fruit. There may have been about 50 fruits growing on the tree.

Common Guava - Psidium guajava

The Common Guava (Psidium guajaya) is the type species for the 100 member Psidium genus. It also goes by the names Apple Guava, Brazilian Guava or often just Guava. It is an edible fruit tree that is quite common in tropical countries. The tree itself is not very large which is a rather good thing if you are like me and enjoy picking its fruits. Most of the trees that I have seen have not been more than 15-20 feet tall.

I took the pictures for this post in the "Concepción" historical-botanical garden in Malaga, Spain along what is called the "Around the World in 80 Trees" trail. My exposure to this tree however goes quite a bit farther back to when I was groing up in Papua New Guinea. These trees are not navite to PNG but have been widely planted and grow quite well.

We had a Cherry Guava tree in our yard but several of our neighboors had the Common Guava tree in theirs. When I was a kid we used to sneak through the back yards of our neighboors and grab a few of the ripe fruits on the sly. Not many of these neighboors would be too upset however as there was normally enough fruits on the trees and a good number of them would end up rotting on the ground.

I remember one day when my best friend and I found a Guava tree heavily laden with beautiful ripe fruit. We quickly plucked a few of the best looking ones off the tree. While my friend took a big bite out of one of his Guavas I broke one of mine open to check what it looked like on the inside. Mine was crawling with worms! I told my buddy to take a look at the inside of mine and his face suddenly turned a pale green color and a moment later was spitting and gaging all over the place trying to get every trace of the worm ladden Guava out of his system.
The Guavas in these pictures (from a Guava that I picked up off the ground and did not eat) did not have any worms.

Ripe Guavas have a thin yellow skin that encloses a soft peach colored "meat" that contains the seeds. The entire fruit is edible, skin, seeds and meat but often we would just eat the meat and seeds since we had not washed the outside of the fruit.

Loquat fruit tree - Eriobotrya japonica

The Loquat fruit tree (Eriobotrya japonica) is a native Chinese tree that has been widely cultivated all over Spain. The edible fruits of this tree are slightly larger than a golf ball and are round to slightly elliptical. Their color is green until they turn a yellow-orange color when ripe.

The way I eat these delicious fruits is to peel of the outer skin, split the inner part in half, remove the seeds (numbering usually from one to three) and then enjoy the "meat" of the fruit. The seeds are fairly large taking up about half the volume of the fruit which means that you have to eat at least four or five of them to feel like you have had a good portion.

These trees are quite sensitive to freezing and rarely produce much fruit if the freezing occurs while they are in flower. There is a tree at a friends house north of Madrid that has a full head of blossoms in December giving the impression that it will produce a lot of fruit. But almost every year they get a good freeze that destroys the fruits even before they have a chance to form. To the south of Madrid and at lower elevation trees that have not been exposed to freezing temps bear their fruit in the Spring.

The leaves of the Loquat tree are about 10-12 inches long, simple in shape with a serrated margin and pronounced veins. They are also quite thick and have a dark green color. The trees themselves do not grow too tall. The ones I´ve seen are about 15 feet tall max.

White Mulberry tree - Morus alba

The White Mulberry tree (species name:Morus alba) is a interesting tree originally from China but cultivated in many countries. I found this one in the Spanish city of Malaga. This particular tree it seems is the property of one rather well mannered mouse (above) who was kind enough to let me take a few pictures. She (or maybe a he?) sat perfectly balanced on her perch while I trained my camera on the leaves, the fruits and the branches of the tree. After I left this kind mouse went back to collecting the ripe Mulberry fruits.

(Mulberries not yet ripe - above)

It is called the "White Mulberry" but I am not sure what the "white" part refers to. There is also a "Red Mulberry" and a "Black Mulberry" that are known to have more flavorful fruits but as far as I can tell the fruits on all three of these trees in black when fully ripe. If someone wants to enlighten me on this one please leave a comment.

One curious thing about the leaves of the White Mulberry is that some of them are are lobed on one side like the one in the picture below. These leaves are also the main source (or perhaps the only source) of food for Silk Worms.

One rather interesting thing about this tree is that when it releases its pollen from its catkins it does so with an explosive burst of built up elastic energy that propels the polen at a speed close to half the speed of sound making it the fastest movement in the plant kingdom (from wikipedia)

(the White Mulberry bark - below)

Pomegranate - Punica granatum L.

The Pomegranate tree (Punica granatum L) is a fruit tree native to the near East (from Iran to North India). It is a small tree that often grows more like a large bush than a tree. It is valued not only as a fruit tree but also for its beautiful flowers that can range in color from red to white or a blend of the two.

The fruit of the Pomegranate is round and about the size of a softball. It is green and red when mature and if left on the tree too long it will split open (if you look closely at the last image above you will see that it is split open along one side).

Beneath about a 1/4 inch this outer husk the Pomegranate is filled with seeds (about a hundred) that are all encased in a pinkish colored, semi translucent material. These seeds are edible and for those who don´t mind ingesting the sesame seed size seeds in the middle they can b eaten right out of the fruit with a spoon or knocked loose and eaten. I prefer however to suck the outer pinkish "meat" off the seeds and then spit the seeds out. It is a bit more work but to each his own.

The Pomegranate is an ancient fruit that is mentioned in the Bible quite a few time.

Cherry tree blossoms in full bloom - Laurelhurst park

This is the time of year when Cherry trees burst into full color with their extravagant blossoms. In some countries, such as Japan and China, observing Cherry trees in bloom is almost a national pastime. These images come from a Cherry tree that I found a few weeks ago in Laurelhust park (Portland Oregen).

The day was a bit overcast and it was about an hour and a half before sunset so the sunlight was not overhead. The tree was also shaded by some rather large Sequoias and Douglas fir tree which made for a pretty soft light.

Portland, Oregon has a number of great park similar to Laurelhurst of which my favorite is Mount Tabor park, located near 60th and Yamhill in southeast Portland.

Avocado tree - Persea americana

Avocado is one of my favorite fruits for the simple fact that I love guacamole. Where I live in Malaga, Spain Avocados are grown quite extensively. The other day I spent the day with a local farmer who grows Olives, Almonds, Avocados, Oranges among others. The Avocados on his trees where full grown although not yet ripe.

I prefer to pick the Avocados green so that I can use them for guacamole when they are just at the perfect stage of ripeness, which for me is when they are totally black on the outside and just a bit soft to the squeeze. I have come across some Avocados though that are still green when they turn ripe so the softness is more of a sign of ripeness than the color.

The tree that we picked from must have had more than a hundred large Avocados hanging from its branches, some of which were hiding among the largish leaves. The branches of the Avocado tree break easily so it is important to remove the fruit carefully so as not to break the branches.


When I make guacamole I use...

• three Avocados
• half of a small lemon
• 1 tablespoon of onion powder or finely chopped onion
• 1/2 teaspoon of cilantro
• 1-2 tablespoons of Taco seasoning

When I have lots of Avocados ripening at once I make a big batch and freeze the guacamole is zip lock bags making sure to leave no air in the bag before I place it in the freezer. When I am going to use the "Guac" I place the bag in warm water for a few minutes to thaw it out.