BreadfruitArtocarpus altilis]

Fig [Ficus spp.]
The fig is the most commercially important member of the mulberry family, and a strange fruit it is. Unlike other mulberries the flowers are inside with a small hole at the end of the fruit through which it's only polinator, a wasp, can enter.

Further, edible fig trees come in female only, so they must be pollinated with pollen from the wild variety the wasps live in. Branches from the wild fig trees are hung in the fig orchards to give the wasps easy access to the fig crop. When the wasps mature they enter and polinate the edible figs. Any eggs they lay there promptly die because it's the wrong kind of fig. This weird method of cultivation seems to have been going on for about 6000 years.

The important fig producing areas are Turkey, Greece, Italy and California. Figs are extremely perishable so about 90% of the crop is sold dried and fresh only near where they are grown.

California produces nearly the entire U.S. crop. The major varieties are Black Mission (black or purple skin, pink inside), Kadota (greenish yellow skin, purple inside), Calimyrna (greenish yellow skin, pinkish brown inside) the favorite drying variety, Brown Turkey (purplish skin, pink inside) and Adriatic (light green skin, pale pink inside) from which fig bars and paste are made. Shown are Calimyrna, Brown Turkey and dried figs from Turkey (probably Smyrna from wich Calimyrna was developed).

Jackfruit [nangka (Malay),Artocarpus heterophyllus]

Milk Tree [Brosimum utile]
Costa Rica

Mulberry [Morus spp.]

• American Mulberry [Red Mulberry, M. rubra] produces medium to very dark red fruit about 3/4" long. Some varieties produce fruit tasty enough to compete with Black (Persian) Mulberry.
• Black Mulberry [Persian Mulberry M. nigra] produces very dark, sweet juicy fruits up to 1-1/2" long.
• White Mulberry [M. alba] originated in China and has been planted in various parts of the world to grow silkworms. The fruit is small, generally a pale to medium lavender, and only moderately sweet.

Osage Orange [Hedge Apple, Maclura pomifera]
Green, nobby and round, between the size of an apple and an orange, this fruit is not generally considered edible, the Osage Orange is valued for it's reputed insect repellant properties. Formerly the shrub was planted as a fence for animal control but has been largely replaced by barbed wire.