ps YourGuatemaln friend has my very sincere sympathy - I've done the same
with Scindapsus coriaceus - AGONY!!
----- Original Message -----
To:
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: [aroid-l] aroid fruit
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter C Boyce
To: aroid-l@lists.ncsu.edu
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 2:27 AM
Subject: Re: [aroid-l] aroid fruit
Dear Friends,
To the list of 'edible' aroid fruits, add Taccarum, Synandrospadix and
Dracontium soconuscum (all S. American, all sweet and pleasant tasting,
though not much 'size/volume' to them), and of all things Dieffenbachia sp.,
as Dr. Croat has reported that the fruits of this, perhaps THE most
'dangerous' aroid (I have a fatality recorded), are also sweet and pleasant
tasting!
We sampled the ripe fruit on Philodendron soli. in Fr. Guyana, they too
were very sweet-tasting and pleasant.
I do NOT recommend that ANYONE experiment of tasting aroid fruit! NOT a
safe hobby!!!! Recently I was demonstrating the wonderful taste of my ripe
Monstera fruit in my front yard to my Guatemalan friend, he must have bitten
a TINY bit of the covering caps, and he was in pain!
I don`t know if Peter mentioned it, but the fruit/seeds of the S. American
giant aquatic aroid Montrichardia are reportedly roasted and eaten by
natives per Deni Bown in her WONDERFUL book on Aroids.
Jason, an interesting note on a birds ability to consume hot chile
peppers, as a boy our parrot LOVED to eat the hottest peppers, our scotch
bonnets, but afterward would demonstrate one of the commoner symptoms of the
eating of these hot fruit, which as boys we often demonstrated after eating
slices of green mangos dipped in chile-laden salt, he/she would 'pant',
holding his beak/mouth open, tongue thrust outward and 'kicking', for a long
period after eating. I believe that the 'heat' of these fruit affected
him! The smaller 'bird peppers' were eagerly consumed off the bush by palm
tanagers and the giant crested fly-catchers, but were swallowed whole due to
their smaller size.
Good Growing,
Julius Boos
WPB,
Florida
>>Arum fruits have a sweet, slightly astringent flavour that soon gives
way to
intense burning of the soft parts of the mouth and the throat.
I don't have precise details of the ages of the children reported to have
died after ingensting Arum fruits, although for those I have such data
ages
ranged from 3 to 9 years.
Pete
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 2:48 AM
Subject: Re: [aroid-l] aroid fruit
> "Peter C Boyce" wrote:
>
> >On the last point, very frequently the ripe fruits are 'protected' by
> >various irritant crystals and/or chemicals and in Europe red and
> >orange-berried Arum and Dracunculus are both irritant and poisonous
with
> >there being several deaths recorded resulting from children ingesting
Arum
> >maculatum and A. italicum berries. So, remember that attractive colour,
> >smell & taste doesn't always man that the fruit are safe to ingest -
I'd
> >recommend that you proceed carefully!
> >
> Do those Arum spp. have attractive tate, or only smell and colour?
Small
children (how small were they?) are known to ingest things experimentally,
rather than because they taste good.
>
> On a similar note, birds' digestion is very different from ours, and it
may be that certain fruits are designed to attract birds, while at the
same
time protect against mammals. The "hot" flavor of chile peppers is an
example of this -- birds can eat chiles without the irritation experienced
by mammals, because their mouths are drier. Small fruits like berries are
more likely to be bird-dispered, while larger fruits like apples and
oranges
are more likely to be mammal-dispersed.
>
> Jason Hernandez
> Naturalist-at-Large
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