African miracle berry – care

Have you ever wondered how many unique, unusual, magical things surround us in nature? There are amazing animals, extraordinary plants, and nature itself, despite all the scientific and technological progress, is still incomprehensible.

One of these natural wonders is the Magic Fruit. The appearance of this plant is unremarkable. Magic fruit, or wonderful berries, or sweetish track (Synsepalum dulcificum) Is a fruit tree and belongs to the Sapotaceae family. The tropics of West Africa are considered the homeland of the plant. Grows in the form of an evergreen tree or shrub. The height of the tree can be up to 5,5 meters. The dark green leaves are elongated.

Miracle fruit

The most amazing thing about this plant is the berries. Because of its wonderful berries, the Magic Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) is most often called Miracle fruit, or Miracle berry (English), which translates as “Miracle berry”. “What is so unusual about them?“, You say. Small red berries, only 2-3 centimeters long, oblong in shape, as such, do not have a pronounced taste, they amaze with their effect on the human taste buds: berries extremely weaken the susceptibility of the papillae of the tongue, which are responsible for recognizing acid. Therefore, it is enough to eat a few wonderful berries, and all subsequent food (sour, salty and even stale) will seem pleasant and sweet.

Anyone who has tasted the fruits of this tree says that even a lemon, which was eaten in one fell swoop after the wonderful berries, seems sweet, and the acid inherent in lemon is not felt at all. The effect lasts a little over an hour.

African miracle berry - careMiracle fruit

Farmer Burea-Uinsurance.com Forest & Kim Starr

The natives of tropical West Africa (Ghana-Congo) widely use this miracle berry: both to add a sweet taste to palm wine and to drown out the taste of stale food.

For the first time, the civilized world learned about the Magic Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) from Fairchild D., who published in New York in 1930 the book โ€œExploring for Plants“(” Research of Plants “). But until now, unfortunately, this tree with its amazing fruits is little cultivated outside its homeland, and the miracle berry has not received mass distribution. Why? Probably, due to the difficulty of observing all the conditions that are necessary for its growth and fruiting: the plant is very fond of light, warm and humid air, but does not tolerate even a slight stagnation of water; It is advisable to sow seeds immediately after separating them from the pulp, since with each subsequent day, such quality of seeds as germination is quickly lost. In addition, outside of its homeland, the tree grows slowly: in the first year it grows by only 5-7 centimeters, in 4 years it reaches only half a meter, in general, the maximum height of a mature tree (shrub) is 1,5 meters.

African miracle berry - careMiracle fruit

In my opinion, a careful study of the properties of the Magic Fruit plant (Synsepalum dulcificum) and its further widespread cultivation both in West Africa and beyond, would help to use the miracle fruits for the benefit of mankind: both for people suffering from diabetes mellitus and for people following all kinds of diets, because, in the words of the American dendrologist E. Menninger: โ€œAccording to chemists, the sweetness produced by the miraculous fruit is “more desirable” than any other known natural or synthetic sweetener.ยป.

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Anna Evans

Author โœ“ Farmer

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