Muntingia calabura "Yellow" (Jamaica Cherry) Seeds

The price is for 20+ seeds

Highlights:

The seeds are the smallest seed that we offer for sale - they are many times smaller than a poppy seed making it a challenge to process and ship them. We ship the seeds either as an entire fruit berry (do not eat the fruit, it be going bad by the time it arrives) or as a small piece of paper on which we have dried the seeds. Each berry contains ~1,000 seeds and we are unable to count them due to their size. The scrap of paper that you are purchasing for the listed price contains 20+ seeds. You can lightly scrape them off the paper with your fingernail into the top of the potting soil where they should germinate a few months later. Do NOT bury the seeds in the soil.

This is probably the fastest growing fruit tree at our farm. It is one of just a handful of trees (everbearing mulberry is the only other that comes to mind) that can be picked nearly everyday year round provided that it is given water and fertilizer. The fruit is enjoyed by children who can shake its trunk and then collect the fruit. The flavor is similar to sweet cereal milk or cotton candy. 

Description

This is the "Yellow" cultivar of Muntingia calabura which is far more rare than the regular red variety. Muntingia calabura, commonly called Strawberry Tree or Jamaica Cherry, is native to the neotropics, from Mexico south to Bolivia, with edible fruit, and has been widely introduced in other tropical areas. Muntingia calabura is a shrub or tree up to 12 m tall with spreading branches. It can grow up to 15' per year and is one of the fastest growing fruit trees and its trunk wood is correspondingly fairly weak. The leaves are alternate, distichous, oblong or lanceolate, 4–15 cm long and 1–6 cm wide, with toothed margin and covered in short hairs. The flowers are small (up to 3 cm wide), solitary or in inflorescences of two or three flowers, with five lanceolate sepals, hairy, five obovate white petals, many stamens with yellow anthers, and a smooth ovoid ovary. Fruit, an edible berry, is red at maturity or less commonly yellow, and is about 1.5 cm wide. It thrives in poor soil, able to tolerate acidic and alkaline conditions and drought, but doesn't grow in saline conditions. The seeds are dispersed by birds and fruit bats. The fruits are edible and in some cases sold in markets, as they can be eaten raw or processed as jam; leaves can be used for making tea. Also, traditional medicinal uses have been reported for the leaves (headaches, prostate problems, reduce gastric ulcers), bark (antiseptic), flowers (antiseptic, reduce swelling, antispasmodic), and fruits (respiratory problems; antidiarrheic). It is planted as an ornamental species, for shade, and also because the flowers are a source of nectar and pollen for the beekeeping industry.