Fruit and Nut Trees

The Chokeberries are deciduous fruit producing shrubs, native to eastern North America members of the Rosaceae family. They are most commonly found in wet woods and swamps. There are two species distinguished by their fruit color, Red chokeberry, and Black chokeberry.They get their name from the astringency of the fruits which are inedible when raw.

The leaves are simple, alternate, with dark hair like projections on the upper mid surface. Their color turns red in autumn. The flowers are small and produced in bunches of 10-25. The fruit is a small with a very astringent, bitter flavor; it is loved and eaten by birds which then disperse the seeds.

The Red chokeberry, Aronia arbutifolia, grows to 2-4m tall but occasionally reaches up to 5 plus meters. Leaves are 5-8cm long. The flowers are white or pale pink, 1 cm diameter, with glandular sepals. The fruit is red, 4-10mm diameter, persisting into winter.

The Black chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa, it grows a lot smaller usually 1m tall and rarely 3m. It spreads readily by root sprouts. The leaves are 5cm long; the flowers are white, 1.5cm diameter. The fruit is black, 6-10mm diameter. The two species can hybridize, giving the Purple Chokeberry.

The Purple Chokeberry, aronia x prunifolia. The fruit is dark purple to black, 7-10mm in diameter. It has similar characteristics to parent plants.

The chokeberries make attractive ornamental plants for the garden. They are resistant to disease, insects, drought and pollution. Juice from these berries is astringent and bitterish but high in vitamin C and many antioxidant phytochemicals, especially anthocyanins). Chokeberries with their rich antioxidant content may be beneficial as a dietary preventative preparation for reducing the risk of diseases caused by oxidative stress.

The berries are used to make wine or jam after cooking and to flavor and color beverages. The fruit of the red chokeberry has a sweeter flavor than the other two species.

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This nut tree is a member of the Family Sapotaceae. It is a tropical tree, adapted to arid environments and it is found largely in the north Indian plains and forests. It is commonly known as mahwa.

Illipe nuts come from a genus with about eighty-five members, including sapote and other delicious fruits. Madhuca is certainly the most important genus as the fat produced from the seeds is often used to extend ghee and coconut butter.

Illipe is a fast growing tree that could grow top 20 meters in height with evergreen or semi-evergreen foliage. It is cultivated for its wood, flowers but most importantly for its oleaginous seeds. There are two crops of nuts per year, one large and the other smaller. Depending on maturity each tree can produce between 20 and 200 kg of seeds annually.

The nuts are oval, long, and smooth with coffee-colored seeds. They contain saponin, which renders them unsuitable for consumption since the substance is a destructive to the blood. However, the oil extracted is similar to lard and it has been used for a number of purposes including skin care products, to make soap and/or detergents, and as a vegetable butter.

The oil can also be used as a fuel since vegetable oils have similar qualities to that of diesel oil. The residue obtained after extraction of oil from seeds makes a very good fertilizer. The bark is used for medicinal purposes and the flowers to produce an alcoholic drink.

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The Stone Pine, Umbrella Pine, Europian nut pine - Pinus pinea is member of the family Pinaceae. This is a species of pine indigen of the Mediterranean area.

It has been cultivated extensively for at least 6,000 years for the edible seeds the pine nuts. It is as well a widespread horticultural tree. It is now established in

South Africa and also planted in Australia and the United States, for the most part in California, but it can endure as far north as New Jersey.

The Stone Pine could exceed 25 m height, though 12-20 m being more of a standard. It has a very typical umbrella-like form, with a short trunk and very wide, smoothly rounded to almost flat peak. The bark is thick, red-brown and deeply fissured into broad vertical plates. The green foliages are needle-like, in bundles of two, and are 10-20 cm long.

Young trees up to 5-10 years old bear leaves, which are very dissimilar, unpaired, 2-4 cm long, blue-green; the adult leaves come along blended with juvenile leaves from the fourth or fifth year on, replacing it in full by more or less the 10th year. Juvenile leaves are also developed in re-growth following injury, such as a broken off shoot, on aged trees.

The cones are broad egg-shaped, 8-15 cm long, and take 36 months to mature, longer than any other pine. The seeds, pine nuts, are large, 2 cm long; light brown with a light-colored black coating which wipes off easily. Seeds are animal-dispersed, primarily by the azure-winged magpie. Small specimens are grown in large plantation sites or are used for Bonsai and year-old seedlings are also widely sold-out as Christmas trees.

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all about fruit and nut bearing trees