Did you know we grow quite a few plants that have edible fruit in our Costa Rica biome? It is exciting watching things grow and ripen, and even occasionally getting to taste them! Here are a few of the edibles we have in our biome.
Here is the newest bunch, in a perfect spot for guests to view from the canopy deck in our Costa Rica biome! Come check it out! We also have a couple of different guava trees. This one is Psidium cattleianum, or strawberry guava. It has sweet, delicious little red fruits. Here is Psidium friedrichstalianum, or Costa Rica cas fruit, another guava. These fruits ripen to a yellow-green color. Here is Malpighia glabra, or Barbados cherry. It produces fruit a little smaller than the cherries we are familiar with, which have a tart taste and are packed with vitamin C. This is Bunchosia argentea, or the peanut butter fruit tree. This is one of the more interesting fruits in the biome. It has small orange-red fruit with a paste-like texture that tastes like peanut butter! It is a very strange sensation to eat a bright red fruit with that unexpected flavor! Here we have Annona muricata, or soursop. An interesting fruit with a spikey exterior, soursop, as it’s name suggests has a sour, citrusy taste. In some places it is used to make candy, ice cream, smoothies and more! Soursop flowers and fruits can grow on branches, stems or even right on the trunk. This is known as cauliflory, when plants that can flower and fruit from their main stems or woody trunks. Pictured above are soursop flowers. You may have noticed cauliflory in a local native tree, our very own redbud, Cercis canadensis! We have a few plants like this in the biome, including soursop, cannonball tree (Couroupita guianensis), jaboticaba (Plinia cauliflora), and our cacao tree (Theobroma cacao). Here you can see a young cacao fruit coming right from the trunk. In this picture we can see cacao fruits in various stages of ripening. While we most often think of making chocolate from these after the pods dry, you can also eat the mildly sweet white flesh surrounding the seeds!
These are some of the plants we are lucky enough to see fruit, that provide nourishment and enrichment to our birds and butterflies, and sometime a small, tasty snack for our staff. It may be cold and snowy outside, but it is always warm, green, and lush inside our Costa Rica biome. Visit us for a tropical getaway!
Does it feel like summer yet? We sure have had a run of warm weather, and this has jump started our blooms. At the botanical garden, the trees are looking... more
Welcome back to It’s Poppin’, and happy Arbor Day! Although it’s been a chilly week, it hasn’t stopped our gardens from poppin’. Enjoy the warmer weather this weekend and come... more
Renovating the Sand Prairie in the Myrtle S. Holden Wildflower Garden It’s not quite the phrase from the musical, ‘Annie’, but it does convey the shock of the renovation work... more
It’s absolutely poppin’ out there! Don’t let the grey skies keep you from a technicolored adventure this weekend. At the Cleveland Botanical Garden, it’s tulip time! Yes, there are other... more
It has been an unforgettable week for northeast Ohio! Whether you were downtown or in the suburbs on Monday afternoon, at 3:13pm we were all gazing skyward to witness the... more
On these gray-cast and chilly days of early spring, bright spatterings of daffodils are like displaced sunshine, coaxing from us hope and smiles for fairer days to come. They stand... more
Spring blooms arrived early this year, but then cold weather set in and pressed pause on our floral displays. The recent heavy rains and cool temperatures mean that spring is... more
I love native plants, especially the prairie plants of my home state, Iowa. So when I first moved out to Ohio, I knew I’d be learning the new names and... more
Welcome back! It’s still early spring and the gardens are starting to ramp up. Here are some new blooms to check out at both of our campuses this weekend: Holden... more
Plant and care for a tree beginning with making a pledge. We will support each pledge with easy-to-follow instructional toolkits, guidance on how to select the most appropriate tree and where to purchase it, free virtual classes and other ongoing support.