Canistel Egg Fruit Seeds (Pouteria campechiana)
100% Fresh Seeds
The canistel bears an outstanding fruit, showy, flavorful, nutritious, and useful. Yet the species is rarely seen outside tropical fruit collections. The tree is attractive and requires little maintenance. It comes into production over the winter when few other fruits are available. Admiration for this species grows with familiarity. It deserves wider planting and makes an ideal addition to the home landscape in Florida.
Fruit (climacteric)
Fruit shape ranges from spindle-shaped to round to obovate (Fig. 3); commonly with a pointed apex. Fruit range in size from 3 to 5 inches (8-13 cm) long and 2 to 3 inches (5-8 cm) in diameter. The peel is thin, waxy, smooth, green when immature and bright yellow to bright orange when ripe. The pulp is relatively firm, smooth, creamy, sweet, and also bright yellow to orange when ripe; the pulp of incompletely ripe fruit is dry and mealy. The pulp of ripe fruit may be dry to moist and mealy to smooth in texture. The fruit have 1 to 5 glossy brown seeds.
Harvesting
The fruits are yellow to orange when they are mature and it is the time to be picked. As they soften, the skin texture changes from glossy to dull. The fruit can be stored at room temperature for 3 to 10 days for ripening.
The mature but still firm fruits should be clipped, leaving a small piece of stem attached, to avoid tearing the skin. When left to ripen on the tree, the fruits split at the stem end and fal
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