

13 March 2015

Food - but what is it?

     We've planted a lot of food-producing plants at False Bluff.  To name some, we've put in coconut, papaya, mango, sugar cane, quince, soursop, banana, peppers, passion fruit, oranges, get the idea. 
     And now we've planted seedlings of this small tree but I at least have no idea what it's called.  I first saw the fruit hanging from a tree in the yard of a Bluefields' friend.  Of course at the time I didn't know that what I was looking at was fruit, or more specifically, a huge seed pod.  The tree shown here's about four years old.

No, those aren't snakes hanging from the tree.

     They are long pods with a very tough corrugated skin.

     When the pods are opened, they're filled with puffy things. 

     The seeds themselves aren't edible.....

but the sweet, puffy covering is...kind of like cotton candy. Very sweet!

     This is a really bad picture, but the seeds above were at False Bluff less than a week and they had already sprouted and ready to pot, in anticipation of going into the ground and adding to our collection...