Dave and Liz Robertson Special page for Florida Flora


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SPECIAL
	Florida Flora Saturday, June 26th 2004 we went to a tropical fruit festival at the West Palm Beach botanical gardens. I didn't know there were so many weird, edible fruits! We saw about 40 different fruits that can be grown here in south Florida. We were sad to realize we couldn't grow peaches here. But we cheered right up when we learned that we could grow pineapples, mangos, bananas, papayas, jackfruit, passion fruit, and coconuts, to name a few.

	This is a flamingo flower; I'm sure it's related to the peace lily. These are short flowers that you can buy as a potted gift in a florist shop, like daisies or roses.

	The coconut tree is one of the only trees in which all parts can be used by man. Cool. I thought there were 3 things you could make with coconut: macaroons, cream pies, and dream bars. But that day I found a dozen recipes I already want to try! Coconut trees are everywhere, here. There's one behind our home, one in every other yard, and on business' properties like it's a landscaping tree.

	This is a favorite of Dave's; it's a tree called royal poinciana. The flowers are very complex, bloom for a long time, and grow into huge canopies.

	This flower is a is called a Heliconia, and although native to South America, like so many things, can be grown here. I've found out that technically, we live in the sub-tropics. I guess I can't say 'tropical' now. As in the sentence 'After growing up in the desert, Florida feels so subtropical.' Or 'I'm decorating my house with a subtropical theme.' One more thing I've learned about warm places. The statement "You go from the air-conditioned store to the air conditioned car...blah blah blah..." Well, ITS A LIE. It's more like "You go from the air-conditioned store to the blazing heat, where you take 5 minutes to unload groceries, return the cart, and climb into the oven that is your car." This discovery is why I now shop before 9 am, carry a handkerchief, and will shortly be buying a wide-brimmed hat and large sunglasses. Don't believe me? It's better than walking around in the liquid state.

	We learned that all it takes to grow a pineapple is the chopped top of a full grown pineapple, planted in the ground. 15 months later, viola! People here go to the grocery store and get tops from the deli. We plan on having a pineapple plantation. I don't think our future home will have grass, with all the orange trees, coconuts, and fruit vines we want to have!

	This was a cool fruit called a lychee. Snap the outer shell to eat the white, grape-like flesh. There's a little black pit in the middle. Lychees are yummy! We also saw other fruits like the ice cream bean, which tastes like cotton candy, and sapote, which is like biting into pure honey, which we didn't like. There were also cashew and cinnamon trees, all sorts of citrus, 4 kinds of bananas, jackfruit, which is a watermelon-sized, prickly fruit with a peachy-tasting yellow flesh. There are also carambola (star fruit), avocados, figs, pomegranates, macadamia nuts, and many other fruits we'd never seen.

	This is a jackfruit. It's as big as a football and ugly, but it tastes good.

	We will post more pictures as we take them. Check back this page for more Florida flora periodically.
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