Tropical & subtropical fruits

Abiu

A smooth, bright-yellow Amazonian fruit with clear, jelly-like flesh that tastes of caramel-vanilla custard — one of the gentlest and sweetest of the sapote family.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Achacha

A bright-orange Amazonian relative of the mangosteen from Bolivia, with a thin leathery skin around tangy-sweet white flesh that tastes of lemonade and honey. Now grown commercially in Australia, which gave it the name achacha.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Ackee

Jamaica's national fruit — soft, buttery yellow arils that cook up like scrambled eggs, from a fruit that is genuinely dangerous unless harvested and prepared exactly right.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Summer

African black plum

A sweet, blue-black African fruit from a savanna tree — soft, date-like flesh tasting of prune and chocolate, eaten fresh, dried, and cooked into a molasses-like sweetener. A valued wild food and medicine across West and Central Africa.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

African breadfruit

A massive, spiky green fruit-head from West and Central Africa whose flesh is discarded — the treasure is the many seeds inside, boiled or roasted into a protein-rich staple dish, ukwa, beloved across Igbo Nigeria.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

African locust bean

A West African tree whose long pods hold two treasures — a sweet, yellow, powdery pulp eaten fresh or in drinks, and seeds fermented into dawadawa, the pungent, protein-rich condiment that seasons much of West African cooking.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

African mango

A West and Central African forest fruit that looks and eats like a fibrous mango — but its real treasure is the seed, ground into ogbono, the beloved soup-thickener of Nigerian and Cameroonian kitchens.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

African star apple

West Africa's dry-season obsession — the orange fruit Nigerians know as agbalumo or udara, sweet-sharp with a skin you chew like gum. When harmattan winds blow, its street price is a national conversation.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Ambarella

A crunchy tropical fruit with pineapple-mango tartness — eaten green and sour with salt, or ripe and sweet — hiding a spiky fibrous pit at its core.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

American persimmon

A small, wild North American persimmon that is mouth-puckeringly astringent until it's dead-ripe and soft — then turns into one of the sweetest fruits on the continent, tasting of dates, caramel, and brown sugar. The base of Midwestern persimmon pudding.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Araçá

A wild Brazilian guava with a strawberry twist — small red or yellow fruit whose sweet-tart, aromatic pulp tastes of guava crossed with berries. Adored in southern Brazil's backyards and juice bars, and infamous elsewhere as an invasive escape artist.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Araticum

The custard-apple of Brazil's cerrado savanna — a large, rugged brown fruit with intensely sweet, aromatic yellow flesh. Strongly flavored and much loved in Minas Gerais, where marolo sweets and liqueurs celebrate the harvest.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Arazá

A large, fragrant, intensely sour yellow fruit of the western Amazon — too acidic to eat raw but transcendent as juice, ice cream, and jam. A Myrtaceae cousin of guava with a heady tropical perfume.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Asam gelugur

A large, ribbed, sour green-to-yellow fruit of the mangosteen family, grown in Malaysia and Thailand almost entirely to be sliced and sun-dried into a tangy souring agent — the tamarind of the Malay kitchen, giving fish curries their bright acidity.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Atemoya

The engineered love-child of sugar-apple and cherimoya — created in Florida in 1908 and perfected in Taiwan and Australia. Custard-sweet with a pineapple tang, fewer seeds, and a hardier disposition than either famous parent.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Avocado

The fruit that thinks it's a fat — buttery, savory, and unique in the plant kingdom for its oil-rich flesh. Botanically a single-seeded berry; culturally, toast's best friend and guacamole's soul.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round Summer

Babaco

A seedless, five-sided golden fruit from the Ecuadorian highlands — a natural papaya-family hybrid tasting of pineapple, strawberry, and papaya, with skin you can eat and flesh light enough to earn it the nickname "champagne fruit."

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Bacaba

A tall Amazonian palm whose purple-black fruit yields a rich, oily, chocolate-brown drink — "bacaba wine" — much like açaí but milder and creamier. A cherished staple of the Brazilian Amazon, drunk sweetened with sugar and cassava flour.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Bacuri

One of the Amazon's most prized flavors — a thick-skinned fruit whose fragrant, sweet-tart white pulp becomes some of Brazil's greatest ice cream and mousse. A relative of mangosteen, so loved in Pará that the pulp is priced like a delicacy.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Bael

A sacred Indian fruit in a hard woody shell, hiding aromatic orange pulp that makes a legendary cooling summer drink — one of the oldest medicinal fruits of the subcontinent, tied to the god Shiva.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Banana

The world's most-eaten fruit — a portable, potassium-rich energy bar that grows on a giant herb, not a tree. The Philippines' Lakatan and Saba varieties go far beyond the supermarket Cavendish.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Banana passionfruit

An elongated, banana-shaped yellow passionfruit from the Andes — soft orange pulp that's sweet-tart and intensely aromatic, the base of Colombia's beloved curuba juice and sorbets. A high-altitude vine, and a notorious invader of Pacific islands.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Baobab

The upside-down tree's velvet pod holds a fruit that dries itself — naturally powdery, sherbet-tart pulp that Africa has stirred into drinks for centuries and food science calls one of the most nutrient-dense fruits measured.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Ber

The Indian jujube — a small, crisp, apple-like fruit that ripens through the hot dry season across South Asia and Africa, eaten fresh with salt and chili, dried, or candied. A hardy desert tree fruit beloved from India to the Sahel.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Bilimbi

The starfruit's ferociously sour cousin — small, crisp green fruits so acidic they are used almost entirely as a souring agent, the tart heart of Filipino sinigang and countless pickles.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round Summer

Binjai

A large, fragrant wild mango of Borneo and Sumatra with soft, pale, juicy flesh — sweeter and less fibrous than most wild mangoes in its best forms, eaten fresh or pounded into fiery sambals across the Malay world.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Biriba

An Amazonian custard-apple cousin whose soft, spiny yellow skin hides white flesh that tastes uncannily of lemon meringue pie — one of the sweetest, most delicate fruits of the tropics, and one of the most fragile.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Bitter kola

A West African seed chewed for its long bitter burn — nothing to do with true kola nut despite the name, and a fixture of Nigerian hospitality, ceremony and market stalls from Lagos to Douala.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Black sapote

A green tomato-shaped persimmon relative whose ripe flesh turns glossy black and tastes uncannily like sweet chocolate pudding — a natural dessert with almost no fat.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Autumn

Breadfruit

The starch that grows on trees — a football of creamy, potato-like flesh that fed Polynesian voyages and sparked the mutiny on the Bounty. Roasted, it earns the name; fried, it beats the potato at its own game.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Year-round

Breadnut

The seeded, wild ancestor of the breadfruit — a spiny green globe packed with chestnut-like seeds that are boiled or roasted across the Caribbean and Pacific. Grown for its nutritious nuts rather than its starchy flesh.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Bullock's heart

The heart-shaped, red-blushed member of the custard-apple clan — smooth-skinned and netted, with soft, creamy, mildly sweet flesh. Less perfumed than its cousins but widely grown from India to the Caribbean as an easygoing dooryard dessert.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Burdekin plum

A flattened, purple-black Australian fruit that must be stored to soften before it's edible — then reveals tart-sweet, wine-dark flesh around a distinctive sculptured seed. A traditional Aboriginal food of the northern rainforests, made into jams and country wine.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Buriti

The scaly red fruit of the towering moriche palm, one of the Amazon's most important wild foods — orange, oily flesh spectacularly rich in beta-carotene, eaten as sweets, drinks, and (as aguaje) a Peruvian street staple with a devoted following.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Burmese grape

Not a grape at all but a trunk-fruiting relative of rambai — clusters of pink-to-crimson berries whose translucent white segments taste sweet-sour like a mild mangosteen. A monsoon treat from Assam to the Mekong, rarely seen beyond it.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Bush tomato

A small desert fruit of central Australia that dries to a raisin right on the bush — intensely savory-sweet with caramel, tomato, and tamarillo notes. A cornerstone Aboriginal food, ground into a spice (akudjura) that's now a star of native Australian cooking.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Button mangosteen

A small, flattened orange fruit like a miniature mangosteen — thin-skinned and easy to open, with sweet-sour segments tasting of tangy marmalade. A rare Malaysian dooryard fruit and one of the mangosteen family's most approachable members.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Cacao

The pod behind chocolate — but its fresh white pulp is a delicious fruit in its own right, sweet-tart and floral, sucked from the beans across the tropics. The seeds, fermented and roasted, become cocoa; the fruit around them is the tropics' best-kept secret.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Cambuci

A green, flattened, flying-saucer-shaped fruit of Brazil's Atlantic forest — intensely sour and wildly aromatic, almost never eaten raw but transformed into some of São Paulo's most prized artisan juices, sorbets, and caipirinhas.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Canistel

The "egg fruit" — bright yellow-orange flesh with the dense, dry, crumbly texture of hard-boiled egg yolk and a sweet custard-and-sweet-potato flavor.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Autumn

Carob

The long brown pod of a Mediterranean tree whose sweet, roasted pulp became the world's best-known chocolate substitute — naturally sweet, caffeine-free, and ancient, with seeds so uniform they gave us the "carat."

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Cashew apple

The juicy, bell-shaped "fruit" the cashew nut dangles beneath — technically a swollen stem, gloriously fragrant, and so fragile that most of the world's crop is drunk within miles of the tree. Brazil turns it into juice; Goa distills it into feni.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Cempedak

A smaller, softer, more intense jackfruit relative from Southeast Asia — deep golden segments with a durian-like richness and heady aroma, often battered and deep-fried whole.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Charichuelo

A ridged, warty yellow fruit of the Amazon and northern South America — a mangosteen relative whose translucent white pulp is sweet-tart and refreshing, tasting of citrus and lychee. A cherished dooryard fruit of Colombia and Peru, little known beyond.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Cherimoya

The Andean custard apple Mark Twain called "deliciousness itself" — green scaled skin over silky white flesh tasting of banana, pineapple, and vanilla custard.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Chironji

The tiny lens-shaped kernel prised from a small forest drupe — India's answer to the almond, scattered through kheer, barfi and festival sweets, and gathered almost entirely from wild trees by forest communities.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Chupa-chupa

A large Amazonian fruit in the cacao family whose brown-green rind peels to reveal sweet, fibrous, deep-orange flesh you suck off the seeds — a pumpkin-and-apricot flavor sold along the rivers of Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Cluster fig

A red fig that grows in dense clusters straight from the trunk of a sacred Indian tree — mildly sweet and eaten ripe, but more often cooked green as a vegetable. A revered plant of Hindu and Buddhist tradition, and a staple of rural and Ayurvedic kitchens.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Cocona

An Amazonian relative of the tomato and naranjilla — glossy orange fruit with a tomato's body and a citrus-lime tang, cooked into savory sauces and sweet drinks across the rainforest. Neither fruit nor vegetable, and used happily as both.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Coconut

The tree of life — drink, food, oil, bowl, and rope from one ocean-borne seed. Two fruits in one lifespan: young buko with electrolyte water and silky jelly, then mature nut with rich white meat.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Cocoplum

A coastal fruit of the tropical Americas and West Africa — white, pink, or dark purple, with mild, cottony-sweet flesh around a large seed whose almond-like kernel is also eaten. A salt-tolerant dune plant made into a beloved candied preserve in Cuba and the Bahamas.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Cupuacu

Cacao's Amazonian cousin — a heavy brown pod whose creamy white pulp tastes of chocolate crossed with tropical fruit, and whose seeds make a prized "cupulate" chocolate.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Dabai

A black, olive-like fruit of Sarawak in Borneo whose hard flesh softens in warm water into a rich, savory, avocado-like paste. Eaten with soy sauce and rice, it's a treasured local delicacy — the "Sibu olive" — that inspires seasonal devotion and steep prices.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Date

The desert's candy and civilization's first sweetener — a palm fruit so energy-dense it fed caravans across empty quarters. Medjools eat like soft caramel; Deglet Noors like honeyed toffee.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Year-round

Date-plum

A small, dark, grape-sized persimmon relative from the Caucasus and Asia, sweet and honeyed when fully soft — tasting, as its name says, of both date and plum. An ancient fruit thought to be the lotus of the legendary lotus-eaters.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Desert date

A tough, thorny tree of the Sahel and dry Africa bearing bittersweet date-like fruit — a drought-defying famine food eaten across the arid belt, with edible oil in its seed and soap-like saponins throughout. A true survival plant.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Doum palm fruit

The hard, shiny, reddish-brown fruit of the gingerbread palm — its dry fibrous rind tasting genuinely of gingerbread. An ancient food of the Nile and Sahel, soaked into a cooling drink and used as medicine, found even in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Dragon fruit

A neon-pink cactus fruit with kiwi-crunch seeds and gently sweet flesh — the night-blooming showpiece of tropical fruit stands and smoothie bowls alike.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Duhat

The purple-tongue fruit — glossy black-violet ovals with juicy, astringent sweet-sour flesh that dyes every mouth it meets. India's beloved jamun and the Philippines' childhood duhat are one and the same tree.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Durian

Southeast Asia's infamous "King of Fruits" — a spiky armored shell hiding rich, custardy flesh whose aroma divides humanity into devotees and refusers.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Elephant apple

A hard, green, dodecagonal fruit whose edible part is really its swollen sepals — fibrous, apple-sour, and beloved in Assamese and Bengali kitchens for the tangy dal and pickle it makes. Wild elephants crack them open, hence the name.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Feijoa

New Zealand's adopted obsession — an egg-shaped South American myrtle fruit tasting of pineapple, guava, and mint at once, scooped with a spoon and impossible to buy where it doesn't grow.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Fig

The inside-out flower of the ancient Mediterranean — jammy, honeyed, and seeded with a thousand crunchy achenes. Possibly the first plant humans ever cultivated, and still the taste of late summer.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Gac

A spiky crimson Southeast Asian gourd-fruit, mild in taste but extraordinary in color — its red seed membranes are among the richest natural sources of lycopene and beta-carotene known.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Autumn

Gandaria

A small golden "plum mango" from Southeast Asia — a mango relative the size of an apricot, eaten ripe and sweet or green and sour in salads and sambals across Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Giant granadilla

The biggest of all passionfruits — a melon-sized, four-angled fruit whose thick spongy rind is cooked as a vegetable while its perfumed pulp is spooned out and juiced. A tropical dooryard favorite from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Gingerbread plum

A hardy Sahelian fruit tree of West Africa's dry sands — its orange, plum-like fruit has mealy sweetish flesh, while the large seed hides an oil-rich edible kernel used like an almond. A dependable dry-season food where little else fruits.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Gnetum

A curious Southeast Asian tree that is neither quite a fruit tree nor a nut tree — its red-when-ripe drupes and their seeds are boiled, fried, and above all pounded into emping, the bittersweet Indonesian crackers, while the young leaves go into soup.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Governor's plum

A small, dark-red to purple-black fruit from a thorny tropical tree — sweet-tart and juicy when fully ripe, astringent before, made into jams and jellies across Africa, Madagascar, and South Asia.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Gowok

A Javanese fruit that grows in dense purple-red clusters on the trunk — soft, juicy, and sweet-tart with a pleasant astringency, eaten fresh and in rujak. A near-forgotten dooryard fruit of Indonesia, a cousin of the jamun and wax apple.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Granadilla

The passionfruit's gentle sibling — an orange shell that cracks like an Easter egg around silvery, slurpable pulp with all of the perfume and none of the pucker. The Andes' favorite fruit to hand a child.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Green sapote

A Central American cousin of the mamey sapote with thinner, olive-green skin and sweet, russet-red flesh tasting of pumpkin, caramel, and sweet potato. A prized but uncommon highland fruit of Guatemala and Honduras.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Guabiroba

A small, round, yellow-green Brazilian fruit with intensely aromatic, sweet-sour flesh and a resinous, almost eucalyptus-tinged perfume. A cherished native of southern Brazil's grasslands, eaten fresh and made into juices, liqueurs, and ice cream.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Guaraná

An Amazonian climbing vine whose red fruit splits to reveal a black seed in white flesh — looking uncannily like an eye. The caffeine-packed seed powers Brazil's national soft drink and the global energy-drink industry.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Guava

The tropics' perfume bomb — a humble green orb whose aroma fills rooms and whose vitamin C embarrasses citrus four times over. Eaten crunchy-green with salt in Asia, pink-ripe and fragrant in the Americas.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round Autumn

Harpephyllum

A tart, red, oval fruit of a handsome South African tree in the mango family — sharp and juicy, made into a rosy jelly, jam, and country wine. A cherished indigenous fruit and street tree of the eastern coast, eaten ripe and prized for preserves.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Horse mango

A pungent, sour wild mango of the Malay world whose species name literally means "foul-smelling" — eaten mostly green in fiery rojak and sambal, its strong flavor and irritant sap making it a fruit best handled by those who know it.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Ice cream bean

A legume that thinks it's dessert — foot-long pods lined with cottony white pulp that tastes of vanilla ice cream. Amazonian children's favorite candy, and the shade tree that shelters half the coffee in Latin America.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Ilama

A large Central American custard apple with a well-kept secret: some trees bear white-fleshed fruit, others a stunning rose-pink, both sweet and creamy. A lowland Pacific-coast relative of the cherimoya, prized where it grows and rare everywhere else.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Imbe

A small, bright-orange African relative of the mangosteen with thin skin and tangy-sweet flesh clinging to a large seed. A hardy savanna and riverbank tree whose fruit is eaten fresh, brewed into wine, and gathered from the wild across eastern and southern Africa.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Jackalberry

The sweet yellow fruit of a giant African savanna tree — a wild persimmon relative loved by jackals, elephants, and people alike, eaten fresh, dried, or brewed into beer across the continent's bushveld.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Jackfruit

The largest tree-borne fruit on earth — up to 40 kg of bumpy green armor around honeyed golden pods that taste like Juicy Fruit gum, plus an unripe stage that shreds like pulled pork.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Japanese raisin tree

A tree whose "fruit" is really its swollen, twisted flower stalks — crisp, sweet, and tasting of raisin and pear when ripe. An East Asian curiosity long used as a hangover remedy, the source of a compound now studied for exactly that.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Jenipapo

A grey-brown tropical fruit famous twice over — as the source of a blue-black body paint used by Amazonian peoples for millennia, and, ripe and soft, as the base of a musky-sweet Brazilian liqueur and syrup that tastes of dried apple and molasses.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Jering

A Southeast Asian legume seed eaten with real enthusiasm and real caution — dark glossy beans with a garlicky, faintly rank flavour, and a documented ability to crystallise in the urinary tract if eaten to excess.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Jujube

China's red date — crisp apple-snack when fresh, caramel-chewy "date" when dried, and a four-thousand-year fixture of Chinese kitchens, medicine chests, and wedding beds alike.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Jussara

The Atlantic-forest twin of açaí — a slender palm whose purple fruit makes an identical rich drink, but which was nearly wiped out because its prized heart-of-palm can only be taken by felling the tree. Now a conservation cause, with fruit-harvesting the key to saving it.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Kair

A small red berry of a leafless, thorny desert shrub of the Thar — sharp and pungent, pickled and curried into the beloved Rajasthani dish ker sangri. A hardy caper relative that fruits in country too harsh for almost anything else.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Kangaroo apple

An egg-shaped orange fruit of a fast-growing Australian and New Zealand shrub — sweet and mildly tomato-like when fully ripe, but toxic until then. A traditional Aboriginal and Māori food that demands exact ripeness, and a modern source of a steroid-drug precursor.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Karuka

The prized nut pandanus of the New Guinea highlands — a giant screwpine whose huge seed heads yield oily, protein-rich kernels tasting of walnut and coconut. Its harvest is so important that whole families migrate to the forest for "karuka season."

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Kei apple

A golden, apricot-bright fruit from southern Africa's most famous living fence — the thorny kei apple hedge. Ferociously tart off the branch, it turns into standout jam, and its vitamin C rivals citrus.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Keledang

A rare Bornean member of the jackfruit family whose spiny orange-red fruit hides sweet, juicy, marang-like flesh. A forest and dooryard treasure of the Malay world, quick to spoil and rarely seen beyond it.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Kelubi

A sour, scaly-skinned swamp-palm fruit of the Malay Peninsula — a tart cousin of the snake fruit (salak), used as a souring agent and pickled into a tangy relish. A wild wetland fruit of Southeast Asia, sharp enough to make salak seem sweet.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Keppel

The fabled "deodorant fruit" of Javanese royalty — a russet, trunk-borne cousin of the custard apple whose sweet, mango-and-violet flesh was said to perfume the sweat and breath of the keraton's princesses. Now rare enough to be a conservation cause.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Khirni

A tiny golden-yellow Indian fruit from a hardy relative of the sapodilla — sweet, soft, and honeyed with a hint of caramel, gathered from wild and temple trees across the dry subcontinent. A cherished, near-forgotten summer fruit of rural India and Sri Lanka.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Kokum

A dark-purple relative of the mangosteen from India's Konkan coast — its sun-dried rind is a prized souring agent, and its cooling pink sharbat is a monsoon lifesaver. Also the source of kokum butter for cooking and cosmetics.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Kuini

A powerfully perfumed wild mango of Southeast Asia — deep-orange, fibrous, and turpentine-rich, with an aroma so intense it fills a room. Loved for juices, sambals, and desserts where its heady scent is the whole point.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Kwai muk

A small, knobbly, orange-red relative of the jackfruit from southern China — soft, sweet-tart, and intensely flavored, with a sticky latex and an irregular shape. A rare backyard treasure, eaten fresh or dried into a chewy sweet.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Lai

A Bornean cousin of the durian with vivid orange flesh and — crucially — a far milder smell. Sweet, creamy, and low in the notorious pungency, it's the durian for people who can't abide durian, and a prized fruit of Kalimantan and Sarawak.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Lakoocha

A knobbly jackfruit relative from South and Southeast Asia with irregular, velvety golden fruit whose sweet-sour pulp is eaten fresh, in chutneys, and cooked green as a vegetable. The tree's heartwood is also a traditional dewormer.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Lanzones

Southeast Asia's translucent grape-in-a-jacket — dusty tan clusters hiding segments of sweet-tart, grapefruit-honey flesh. The pride of Camiguin island and Laguna province, celebrated with its own festival.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Lasora

A small, sticky-fleshed Indian fruit famous for its mucilage — pickled green into the tangy Gujarati and Rajasthani gunda pickle, eaten ripe as a mild sweet, and once used as a natural glue. A hardy, ancient dry-land tree fruit.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Lemon drop mangosteen

A small orange Central American relative of the mangosteen whose soft segments taste exactly like a lemon-drop candy — sweet, intensely citrusy, and tangy. A backyard favorite in the tropics, prized for its uncanny sherbet flavor.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Longan

The "dragon's eye" — lychee's smaller, tan-shelled cousin with muskier honey flavor and a black seed staring from translucent flesh. Beloved fresh in summer, dried year-round in Chinese kitchens and teas.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Lúcuma

Peru's beloved golden fruit — dry, dense flesh tasting of maple, sweet potato, and butterscotch. Almost never eaten out of hand, it is the country's favorite ice-cream flavor and has been painted on pottery for 2,000 years.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Lychee

China's imperial berry — rose-scented, grape-fleshed, jade-seeded, and adored for two millennia. An emperor famously ran pony express relays just to deliver it fresh; one taste explains why.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Spring

Mabolo

The Philippine "velvet apple" — a persimmon relative in a striking velvety pink-red skin, with sweet, dense cream-colored flesh and a famously strong, cheesy-fruity aroma.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Macambo

A large, ridged relative of cacao from the Amazon, with sweet white pulp like its cousin and — unusually — big, edible seeds that are roasted like chestnuts or almonds. An ancient Amazonian crop enjoying a revival as a superfood snack.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Madd

West Africa's fiercely sour liana fruit — a hard green-yellow ball that cracks open on a mass of orange, tamarind-tart pulp packets. Sold by the basket at Dakar roadsides and turned into the juice that defines a Senegalese hot season.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Mahobohobo

The best-loved wild fruit of the miombo woodlands — a russet-brown ball with sweet, sticky, pear-and-caramel pulp that draws whole communities into the bush each autumn across Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Mahua

The tree whose flowers are the crop — thick, fleshy, intensely sweet corollas that drop at dawn and are gathered by the sackful across central India, eaten, dried, and distilled into the spirit that carries the tree's name.

Tropical & subtropical Spring

Malay apple

A glossy, deep-crimson bell-shaped tropical fruit with crisp white flesh — mild, sweet, and refreshingly watery, spread by ancient Polynesian voyagers across the Pacific and grown from Malaysia to Hawaii.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Mamey sapote

The salmon-fleshed giant of Latin America — a rough brown football hiding flesh like sweet-potato custard laced with almond, apricot, and pumpkin spice. Cuba's milkshake monarch.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Spring

Mammee apple

A big brown cannonball of a Caribbean fruit whose firm orange flesh tastes of apricot, peach, and raspberry. Not to be confused with the mamey sapote — this is a different tree entirely, eaten fresh, stewed, and steeped into the old French liqueur crème de mamey.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Mamoncillo

The Caribbean's summer street fruit — grape-green leather balls cracked open with your teeth for a slippery, salmon-pink pulp that tastes of lychee crossed with lime sherbet. Sold in bunches on every corner from San Juan to Cartagena.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Mangaba

The soft, fragrant fruit of a rubber-producing cerrado tree — sweet-tart and creamy when dead-ripe, milky and mouth-gripping if picked too soon. Northeast Brazil turns it into ice cream and juice, and the name itself means "good thing to eat."

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Mangosteen

The "Queen of Fruits" — a deep-purple shell that opens to snow-white segments tasting of lychee, peach, and citrus sorbet. Once so coveted Queen Victoria allegedly offered a reward for a fresh one.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Mangrove apple

The sour green fruit of a mangrove tree — flat and cheese-scented, with a tangy pulp made into refreshing juices, sherbets, and sour soups across coastal Southeast Asia. A tidal-forest fruit central to Vietnamese and Indonesian riverside cooking.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Manila tamarind

Not a true tamarind but a curly, coiled pod hiding sweet-and-sour pink or white pulp around shiny black seeds. A hardy street and dryland tree from Mexico to the Philippines, its pods a cherished childhood snack.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Marang

Mindanao's aromatic jackfruit cousin — a bristly green pod that opens to soft, snow-white segments tasting of custard, banana, and pear, with an intense perfume and a short shelf life.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Marula

Southern Africa's golden windfall fruit — a plum-sized cousin of the mango whose tart, floral flesh feeds villages, breweries, and the famous cream liqueur. Whole ecosystems and economies pick it up off the ground every February.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Matoa

A brown-shelled Pacific fruit in the lychee family whose translucent flesh tastes like a mix of rambutan, longan, and coconut. The pride of Papua, gathered from towering rainforest trees across New Guinea and the Pacific islands.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Maypop

North America's hardy native passionfruit — an egg-shaped green fruit that "may pop" underfoot, filling with sweet-tart, aromatic pulp. A wild fruit of the American South whose flower and leaf are also a famous calming herbal tea.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Menteng

A small yellow-to-reddish fruit that hangs in dense clusters from the trunk of a Javanese forest tree — sweet-sour translucent flesh clinging to seeds, a nostalgic dooryard fruit of Indonesia now increasingly hard to find.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Mobola plum

A yellow-brown, plum-sized African fruit with mealy, sweet-sour flesh tasting of dried apricot and pear — a valued wild savanna food across southern and central Africa, eaten fresh, dried, and brewed into a traditional beer.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Monkey jack

A small, wild jackfruit relative from Southeast Asia — round, rough, and orange-skinned, with sweet-sour deep-orange flesh and crunchy edible seeds. A forest fruit beloved by monkeys and foragers, sharper and smaller than its famous cousins.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Monkey orange

A hard-shelled African savanna fruit like a green cannonball, hiding sweet-sour brown pulp around many seeds. A prized wild food across the bush — but one that must be fully ripe, as the unripe fruit is toxic.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Monstera fruit

Yes — that houseplant. In its native jungles the Swiss-cheese plant bears a scaly green cob that ripens over a full year into flesh tasting of pineapple, banana, and jackfruit. Delicious when ready; needle-sharp punishment when rushed.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Mountain papaya

A small, fragrant, cold-hardy cousin of the papaya from the high Andes — too astringent to eat raw, but transformed by cooking into some of South America's most beloved preserves, candied sweets, and aromatic drinks.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Nam-nam

A curious Southeast Asian fruit that grows straight from the trunk — wrinkled, kidney-shaped brown pods that look almost brain-like, with crisp sour-sweet flesh eaten fresh with sugar, pickled, or fried into a tangy snack.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Nance

Small golden fruits with a powerful, cheesy-fermented aroma and an oily, sweet-sour flesh — a nostalgic street snack across Mexico and Central America, sold in syrup or with chili and salt.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Naranjilla

The Andes' "little orange" — a fuzzy orange fruit with electric-green, intensely tangy pulp that makes one of South America's most refreshing juices, rhubarb-meets-lime-meets-pineapple in a glass.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Natal plum

A crimson, plum-shaped South African fruit with a sweet-tart, cranberry-strawberry flavor and soft red flesh — eaten fresh and made into a ruby jam. A thorny, salt-tolerant coastal hedge whose milky-sapped unripe fruit ripens into a genuine treat.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Native tamarind

An Australian rainforest fruit whose capsules split to reveal seeds wrapped in bright orange, intensely tart flesh — a native souring fruit used in drinks, sauces, and jams, and a lychee-family relative despite its tamarind-like tang.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Nipa palm fruit

The translucent jelly cubes in your ice kacang — cut from a mangrove palm that grows in tidal mud, gathered from a football-sized cluster of seeds, and one of the few crops harvested from a plant with no trunk at all.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Noni

A knobbly, pale, pungent tropical fruit famous less for flavor than for its potent smell and its reputation as a Polynesian and Southeast Asian medicine. A hardy pioneer plant whose fermented juice became a global health fad.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Oleaster

A silvery, mealy, date-like fruit from a hardy Central Asian tree — dry and sweet with a floury texture, eaten across Iran and the Caucasus, where dried senjed is a symbol of love on the Persian New Year table.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Palmyra fruit

The fruit of the towering palmyra palm — tender, translucent jelly-seeds eaten as cooling "ice apple" in the South Asian summer, and a fibrous orange ripe pulp used for sweets and drinks. A whole-plant lifeline of the dry tropics.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Pandanus fruit

The large, segmented orange-red fruit of the coastal screwpine — a spiky ball of wedge-shaped "keys" chewed and juiced across the Pacific and eaten cooked as a staple in Micronesia. A canoe plant of many uses, from famine food to the aroma of Southeast Asian cooking.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Papaya

A soft, sunset-orange melon-like fruit that grows like a palm-tree lantern — gentle, musky sweetness, legendary digestive enzymes, and a green unripe stage that's a vegetable in its own right.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Passion fruit

The loudest flavor per gram in the fruit kingdom — a wrinkled shell of golden pulp whose tropical-tart perfume can season a whole cake with one spoonful. Wrinkles mean ready, not ruined.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Patawá

A stately Amazonian palm whose purple-black fruit yields a rich, protein-heavy "milk" and a fine oil so like olive oil that it has been proposed as a substitute. Drunk as a nourishing beverage across the Amazon, it is açaí's oilier, more sustaining cousin.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Pawpaw

North America's largest native fruit — a temperate cousin of the cherimoya with soft, tropical-tasting custard flesh of banana, mango, and vanilla, almost never sold because it bruises in a day.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Peach palm

A fruit you boil, not bite — the orange-red fruit of a spiny Central and South American palm, cooked in salted water until its dense flesh eats like a cross between chestnut and buttered potato. A pre-Columbian staple sold from street carts across the tropics.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Pequi

The golden, funky heart of Brazil's Cerrado — an oily fruit you must nibble with care, because under its buttery flesh waits a disc of hidden spines. Loved to the point of festivals in Goiás and Minas, baffling to everyone else.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Persimmon

Autumn's lantern — a glowing orange fruit with two personalities: crisp, sweet Fuyu eaten like an apple, and Hachiya, an astringency bomb that transforms into apricot-honey custard when fully soft.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Petai

The stink bean of Southeast Asia — flat emerald pods hiding rows of almond-shaped seeds with a garlic-and-gas pungency that lingers on the eater for a day or more. Adored in Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Thailand, and unmistakable.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Pindo palm

A hardy South American palm bearing hanging clusters of small yellow-orange fruit that taste of pineapple, banana, and apricot — sweet-tart and fibrous, famous for the amber "pindo jelly" and country wine made from them, and cold-hardy enough to fruit far from the tropics.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Pineapple

A South American bromeliad that became the crown of tropical fruit — literally the symbol of hospitality. Sweet-sharp golden flesh, a protein-eating enzyme, and a Philippine export empire.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Year-round

Pitomba

A small yellow-orange fruit that grows in grape-like clusters across northeastern Brazil — a lychee relative whose thin brittle shell cracks to reveal translucent, sweet-tart flesh clinging to a large seed. A beloved seasonal street snack.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Plantain

The banana that went savory — bigger, starchier, and thicker-skinned, treated as a vegetable from Lagos to San Juan to Manila. Green it's a potato; black it's dessert; every stage in between has a recipe.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Pomegranate

The jewel box of fruits — a leathery red vault packed with hundreds of ruby arils, each a burst of sweet-tart juice around a crunchy seed. Persia's ancient symbol of abundance, now a superfood-aisle fixture.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Prickly pear

The cactus orchard's candy — neon-fleshed fruit off the nopal paddle, tasting of watermelon and bubblegum, armed with invisible hairline spines that demand respect and tongs.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Pulasan

Rambutan's sweeter, richer cousin — a dark-red fruit covered in short, thick, blunt spines, with juicy translucent flesh that pulls cleanly from the seed.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Rambai

Velvety tan fruit hanging in long strings straight from the trunk — a Malaysian and Bornean village favorite with translucent, sweet-sour segments like a softer, wilder lanzones. Rarely farmed at scale, mostly shared over fences.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Rambutan

A lychee cousin in a wild red-and-green hairy shell — sweet, floral, grape-like flesh that makes it Southeast Asia's most fun fruit to peel.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn

Rose apple

A small, crisp, hollow fruit whose pale flesh genuinely tastes and smells of rosewater — light, floral, and more perfume than sugar, best eaten fresh off the tree.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Spring

Rukam

A round red-to-purple fruit of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, crisp and sweet-tart when ripe, astringent before — traditionally rolled between the palms to tame it. A hardy dooryard fruit eaten fresh, stewed, and pickled.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Safou

Central Africa's "butterfruit" — a glossy indigo fruit that roasts into something like warm, tangy avocado butter. Eaten with grilled corn on a million street corners, it's a savory fruit that behaves like a vegetable and nourishes like a meal.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Salak

The snake fruit — a fig-sized teardrop wrapped in genuine reptile-pattern scales, hiding crisp ivory lobes that taste of pineapple, pear, and something fermented-honeyed. Indonesia's spikiest handshake.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round Summer

Sansapote

A large, rough-skinned Central American fruit with sweet, deep-orange, fibrous flesh tasting of pumpkin and sweet potato. A humble backyard sapote of Mexico and the isthmus, eaten fresh off the tree and beloved by children and monkeys alike.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Santol

The cotton fruit — a golden tennis ball whose sour rind hides sweet, cottony white segments you suck rather than chew. A Filipino and Thai backyard classic with a serious don't-swallow-the-seed rule.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Sapodilla

The brown-sugar fruit — dusty tan skin over caramel flesh that tastes like a pear baked in molasses. Also the tree that gave the world chewing gum, before synthetics took the job.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Winter

Sapucaia

A Brazilian rainforest tree whose woody, pot-shaped fruit pops off its own lid to drop rich, creamy nuts — the "paradise nut," rated even finer than the Brazil nut. The emptied urn-like pods, called monkey pots, are a curiosity in their own right.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Sea grape

The fruit of the salt-tolerant tree that lines Caribbean and Gulf beaches — hanging clusters of green-to-purple grapes with a single big seed, thin sweet-tart flesh, and a jelly so beloved it defines Bahamian and Floridian summers.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Shea fruit

The sweet green fruit that surrounds the famous shea nut — soft, mildly sweet flesh eaten fresh across the West African savanna during the hungry season, while the seed inside becomes the world's beloved shea butter. Two gifts from one tree.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Sidr

A small, round, date-like fruit of a sacred thorny tree of the Middle East and Sahel — sweet, mealy, and apple-scented, eaten fresh and dried, and revered across religions. Its blossoms yield the world-famous, prized sidr honey.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Sineguelas

Small plum-like tropical fruits eaten by the handful — thin skin over sweet-tart yellow flesh clinging to a big pit, a beloved Philippine and Latin American summer snack.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Snot apple

An unglamorously-named but beloved southern African fruit — a woody capsule whose sticky, mucilaginous flesh is chewed for its sweetness like natural gum. A hardy savanna tree fruit and a cherished childhood snack across the region, mucus-like texture and all.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Soncoya

The rugged giant of the custard-apple family — a brown, hook-covered fruit the size of a grapefruit hiding fragrant orange pulp that tastes of mango and papaya. A rustic Central American cousin of soursop and cherimoya, usually drunk rather than spooned.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Sour plum

A bright red-to-orange African fruit as sharply sour as its name promises — thin-fleshed, tart, and refreshing, gathered from thorny savanna shrubs and made into juices, jams, and drinks, with a prized oil pressed from its seed.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Soursop

The tropics' creamiest sour fruit — a spiky green giant whose white pulp tastes like strawberry-pineapple custard with citrus lightning. The soul of Latin sorbets and Filipino juice stands alike.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Star apple

Cut this glossy purple globe crosswise and a translucent star appears — hence the name. Its milky, sweet flesh made it a beloved dooryard fruit from the Caribbean to the Philippines, where merienda under a kaimito tree is childhood itself.

Tropical & subtropical Winter Spring

Starfruit

The fruit that slices into stars — waxy golden ridges, crisp grape-citrus flesh, and zero prep beyond a knife. A garnish celebrity that's genuinely good eating, with one serious kidney-health caveat.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Strawberry guava

A small red guava that tastes genuinely of strawberry, eaten skin and all in a single bite — and simultaneously one of the most destructive invasive plants in the Pacific, where it has swallowed whole Hawaiian forests.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Sugar palm fruit

The translucent, chewy seed-fruit of the sugar palm — sold as kaong or kolang-kaling, boiled and sweetened for halo-halo and festive sweets across Southeast Asia. The same palm gives one of the region's finest sugars.

Tropical & subtropical Year-round

Sugar-apple

The knobby little custard grenade — scaly segments that pull apart into spoonfuls of perfumed, pear-custard sweetness around slick black seeds. The Philippines' beloved atis, best eaten with your hands.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Tamarillo

An egg-shaped, jewel-toned relative of the tomato — tangy, savoury-sweet flesh with an edible skin best peeled, eaten spooned from the shell or cooked into chutneys across the Andes and New Zealand.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Tamarind

The sour engine of half the world's cuisines — a legume pod whose sticky brown pulp powers sinigang, pad thai, agua de tamarindo, Worcestershire sauce, and chutneys across four continents.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Tampoi

A round, velvety brown-to-pink fruit of the Bornean rainforest — crack the thick rind and translucent white or yellow segments spill out, sweet-sour and juicy like a larger, richer rambai. A cherished wild and dooryard fruit of the Malay world.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Tendu

The sweet golden fruit of an Indian ebony tree — a wild persimmon relative, honey-sweet when fully ripe, astringent before. A cherished forest fruit of central India, from a tree whose leaves wrap the country's bidi cigarettes and whose wood is true ebony.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Tomatillo

A green, husk-wrapped fruit at the heart of Mexican cooking — tart, firm, and bright, the essential base of salsa verde. A Physalis cousin of the cape gooseberry, but savory and cooked rather than sweet, and central to Mexican cuisine since Aztec times.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Tropical almond

The flat, almond-shaped fruit of a sprawling tropical beach tree — a thin layer of sweet-sour flesh over a hard stone whose kernel tastes just like an almond. A pantropical shade tree whose fruit is a nostalgic childhood forage across the tropics.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Tucumã

A vivid orange Amazonian palm fruit with dense, fibrous, oil-rich flesh — the beloved filling of Manaus's iconic X-caboquinho sandwich. Intensely carotene-rich, mildly savory-sweet, and eaten with tapioca and cheese across the Brazilian Amazon.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Umari

An Amazonian fruit with buttery, oily, yellow-orange flesh so rich it's spread on bread like butter — aromatic and savory-sweet, eaten with cassava across the western Amazon. A "vegetable butter" of the rainforest, unique and little-known beyond it.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Umbu

The "sacred tree of the backlands" bears this lime-green, juicy-tart fruit through the droughts of Brazil's caatinga — thanks to water-storing roots. Umbu means "the one that gives drink," and the milkshake-like umbuzada proves it daily.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Uvaia

A soft, juicy, pear-shaped yellow fruit of Brazil's Atlantic forest — intensely aromatic and sweet-tart, so thin-skinned and delicate it bruises in the hand, making it a backyard treasure rarely sold in shops.

Tropical & subtropical Spring Summer

Velvet tamarind

A small, hard-shelled black fruit that cracks to reveal a thin coat of orange-brown, powdery, sweet-sour pulp around a seed — a beloved snack across West Africa and Southeast Asia, sold by the bagful and sucked like a natural sweet-tart candy.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Wampee

A citrus-family curiosity from southern China that grows like grapes and peels like a loquat — brittle tan skin, translucent flesh, and a flavor between grapefruit, longan, and lemonade. Beloved in Guangdong, nearly unknown outside Asia.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Waterberry

A purple-black berry of a handsome waterside African tree — sweet-tart and slightly astringent, eaten fresh and brewed into a country wine. A cherished indigenous fruit of southern and eastern Africa's rivers and wetlands, and a favorite of birds and monkeys.

Tropical & subtropical Summer

Wax apple

A glossy, bell-shaped tropical fruit with the crunch of a watery apple and a light, refreshing sweetness — Southeast Asia's favorite hot-weather thirst-quencher, eaten skin and all.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Spring

White sapote

A citrus-family fruit that tastes nothing like citrus — custard-soft ivory flesh with flavors of banana, peach, and vanilla, and a long folk reputation as a sleep aid.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Wild custard apple

Africa's own member of the custard-apple family — a small, lumpy fruit that ripens from green to orange, with sweet, fragrant, pineapple-and-apricot flesh. A beloved wild food of the savanna, gathered by children across the continent.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Wild medlar

A round, apple-brown African fruit whose soft ripe pulp tastes of dried apple and dates — a beloved savanna snack across southern Africa, gathered from the wild, eaten fresh, and brewed into a traditional drink. No relation to the European medlar it resembles.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn

Wood apple

A cannonball of a fruit from India and Sri Lanka — a grey, wood-hard shell you crack like a coconut, hiding brown, tamarind-ish pulp that smells fermented and tastes like sour caramel raisins. The base of one of South Asia's great market drinks.

Tropical & subtropical Autumn Winter

Yellow mombin

A small, tart, golden tropical fruit in the mango family — cajá to Brazilians, hog plum to the Caribbean — whose intensely aromatic pulp makes some of Latin America's most beloved juices, ice creams, and cocktails.

Tropical & subtropical Summer Autumn