Fruits of the Garden
A fruit is how a flowering plant packs up its seeds. Here are the garden’s fruit trees and shrubs, from sweet to sour and from familiar to unusual.
Avocado
घिउफल
Persea americana
An avocado is a giant berry with one huge seed. In its native Central America, the big seed was probably spread by large animals that swallowed the fruit whole.
Jackfruit
रुख कटहर
Artocarpus heterophyllus
The largest fruit that grows on a tree, sometimes over 30 kilograms. Jackfruits grow straight out of the trunk and thick branches, and even the seeds are eaten, roasted or boiled.
Guava
अम्बा
Psidium guajava
Guava is packed with vitamin C, often more than an orange. Look at the bark too: it peels off in thin flakes, leaving the trunk smooth and mottled.
Java Plum (Jamun)
कालो जामुन
Syzygium cumini
Jamun ripens in the monsoon, and its purple-black fruit turns your tongue purple. Birds and bats love it too, and spread the seeds.
Indian Jujube (Bayar)
बयर
Ziziphus mauritiana
Bayar is a small, thorny tree whose fruit is eaten fresh, dried, or pickled. Look at a leaf: three strong veins start from its base, a clue for recognizing jujubes.
Dwarf Banana
छोटो केरा
Musa acuminata ‘Dwarf Cavendish’
A banana plant is not a tree: its “trunk” is tightly rolled leaf stalks, with no wood at all. That makes it one of the largest herbs in the world.
Elderberry
कनिका फूल
Sambucus sp.
Elder’s flat clusters of tiny cream flowers become dark berries that birds feast on. People cook the berries into syrup and jam; raw berries and the leaves can make you sick.
Flowering Quince
Chaenomeles sp.
It blooms on bare, thorny branches in late winter, before its leaves appear. Its hard, fragrant fruits are too sour to eat raw but make good jelly.
Longan
Dimocarpus longan
Its name means “dragon’s eye” in Chinese: peel the thin brown shell, and the clear, juicy flesh around the dark seed looks like an eyeball. It is a close cousin of the lychee.
Macadamia
Macadamia integrifolia
Macadamias have one of the hardest nutshells of any tree, much harder to crack than a walnut. The tree comes from the rainforests of eastern Australia.
Mulberry
किम्बु
Morus sp.
Mulberry leaves are the main food of silkworms, so this tree is where silk begins. Its fruits look like blackberries and stain fingers purple.
Rose Apple
गुलाब जामुन
Syzygium jambos
Bite into its crisp, hollow fruit and it tastes and smells faintly of roses. It is in the same genus as clove and jamun.
Strawberry
Fragaria × ananassa
The dots on a strawberry are its real fruits, each holding one seed. The garden strawberry began in France about 270 years ago, as a cross between two wild strawberries from the Americas.
Star Fruit
तारा फल
Averrhoa carambola
Slice a star fruit crosswise and every piece comes out star-shaped — a built-in party trick from a tree that’s native to Southeast Asia and now grown in warm gardens worldwide.
Fruiting now
Persimmon
हलुवाबेद
Diospyros kaki
A persimmon tree looks dramatic in autumn, dropping its leaves while bright orange fruit still hangs heavy on the branches.
Coffee Plant
Coffea arabica
Inside every coffee cherry are two seeds — the ‘beans’ — that get separated, dried, roasted, and ground to make coffee, one of the most widely traded agricultural products on Earth.
More in Food and Medicine
The garden is alive and changes through the year. Some plants flower, fruit, or rest only in certain seasons, so what you see depends on when you visit.
See them for yourself
Every plant here grows on our campus in Bhaktapur. Walk the garden on your visit.
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