I'm stumped on this one, folks. My friend, in whose Quito backyard the tree is found, calls these things "cherries" and they clearly aren't any cherry I'm used to. The fruits are about the size of ping-pong balls. The tree, when it isn't bent double under the load of the fruits, is about 10 m tall. I'm sorry but I don't have flowering photos at this time. I can't find it in any of my books, and I'm a bit flummoxed. My first impression is a Solanale of some sort, but the fruit doesn't bear this out - there are only five, fairly large, dish-shaped oblanceolate seeds inside. I've also yet to see anything from that family that forms an honest-to-goodness tree. The fruit itself has a slightly fuzzy skin which my friend does not regard as edible, and juicy red-orange flesh that is sweetish and also quite sour with a light effervescence. It's redder towards the seeds, and oranger towards the skin. Any ideas? The size of the tree and sourness of the fruits seems to rule out Acerola (Malpighia). If it will help, I can cut a fruit open and take a picture of that as well. I've got a big bag of them in the fridge.
looks allot like dovyalis hybrid to me i have one but i cut the tree down and just have a small plant in a pot mine actually throws thorns there are semi thornless and some tht are thorny. sorry i donot have any pictures of my plant in fruit but it is sweet and sour mostly sour i have always eaten the skin and never had any problem would be kinda hard the skinn the fruit the skin is really really thin. i believe the original cross was kentimbala and the Abyssinian gooseberry it was never officially named to my limited knowledge
That sure looks like it! Thanks, Mikey! This one grows quite wicked thorns on new growth, but as the tree is quite established the main trunk's just kind of rumply and bumpy where the thorns were.
Everything I can find says that D. caffra fruits are uniformly yellow when they're ripe, though. Since these are red-orange, it seems more likely that it's the hybrid....
