Nephelium lappaceum Rambutan Seedling

Family: Sapindaceae •
Genus: Nephelium •
Species: lappaceum (L.) •
Country of Origin: Malay Archipelago •
Common Names: Rambutan, Mamón Chino •

I purchased some fruit from Whole Foods™ market nine to be exact. After chowing down on the fruit, which were delicious! I cleaned up the seeds and planted them. Only the one seen here sprouted. It seems to be doing well though. I'll posts updates from time to time. 'Fruits of Warm Climates' by J. Morton, says that this species is dioecious. Hopefully the tree will turn out a hermaphrodite so it will produce fruit. If not I'll be looking for some budwood to do a graft. Anyone growing Rambutan?

The rambutan tree reaches 50 to 80 ft (15-25 m) in height, has a straight trunk to 2 ft (60 cm) wide, and a dense, usually spreading crown. The evergreen leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, 2 3/4 to 12 in (7-30 cm) long, with reddish rachis, hairy when young, and 1 to 4 pairs of leaflets, subopposite or alternate, elliptic to oblong-elliptic, or rather obovate, sometimes oblique at the base; slightly leathery; yellowish-green to dark-green and somewhat dull on the upper surface, yellowish or bluish-green beneath; 2 to 8 in (5-20 cm) long, 1 to 4 1/3 in (2.5-11 cm) wide, the 6 to 15 pairs of principal veins prominent on the underside. The small, petalless flowers, of three kinds: males, hermaphrodite functioning as males, and hermaphrodite functioning as females, are borne in axillary or pseudo-terminal, much branched, hairy panicles.

These are the fruits the seeds came from.

The fruit is ovoid, or ellipsoid, pinkish-red, bright-or deep-red, orange-red, maroon or dark-purple, yellowish-red, or all yellow or orange-yellow; 1 1/3 to 3 1/8 in (3.4-8 cm) long. Its thin, leathery rind is covered with tubercles from each of which extends a soft, fleshy, red, pinkish, or yellow spine 1/5 to 3/4 in (0.5-2 cm) long, the tips deciduous in some types. The somewhat hairlike covering is responsible for the common name of the fruit, which is based on the Malay word "rambut", meaning "hair". Within is the white or rose-tinted, translucent, juicy, acid, subacid or sweet flesh, 1/6 to 1/3 in (0.4-0.8 cm) thick, adhering more or less to the ovoid or oblong, somewhat flattened seed, which is 1 to 1 1/3 in (2.5-3.4 cm) long and 2/5 to 3/5 in (1-1.5 cm) wide. There may be 1 or 2 small undeveloped fruits nestled close to the stem of a mature fruit.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/rambutan.html



Nephelium lappaceum Rambutan Seedling by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com