That’s a white-fruited variety, though coco plum fruits also come in blue-black. Both taste good, though they are a bit stringy with a big seed in the middle. Sort of like a sweet-fluffy cotton candy.

This next fruit is a really weird one. It’s called a “screw pine”, also known as Pandanus utilis.

The fruit is reportedly starchy and edible, though I’ve never had a chance to give one a try. Here’s what the entire tree looks like:

Very weird-looking – I wish I could grow one up here.

Another fruit I wish I could grow is the sapodilla:

I can’t tell you how delicious these things are. This tree was growing in the same yard as the ackee fruit in the first picture. Someone is a gardener after my own heart.

Finally, here’s an under-utilized fruit tree from the tropics that I really love:

Those, in case you didn’t grow up as blessed as I was, are sea grapes.

My grandma and grandpa had them growing in a hedge along the back wall of their yard in Ft. Lauderdale when I was a kid. My brother and I used to try to walk the entire wall in between their huge and twisting branches… and we also ate the fruit. The wood of the sea grape is also a bright and lovely hardwood with an incredible red-orange color.

This Florida artist has used it in a hand-carved bowl:

The fruit is really best for jam-making but I used to eat it right from the trees in season. Some are really good… and some taste weirdly over-ripe.

Even if you couldn’t eat the fruit, however, the tree is a thing of beauty.

I imagine one day having a food forest in the tropics where I can plant wild tropical fruit like sea grapes, ackee and other marvelous trees together…

…until then, I’ll try to be happy with visits down south.

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