Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: Mick McLoughlin on June 01, 2007, 06:55:32 PM
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I have had this shrub for a number of years and in different gardens. Never known it to flower before. Can anybody tell me what it is please?
Just a single flower on it.
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Fruit Salad Tree, I think, is what I knew it as when I was younger. Googling it all I find are references to a tree hoax
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Thanks Mark I googled "fruit salad" shrub and got this http://www.floridata.com/ref/F/feijoa.cfm
Looks like this to me cheers.
Never heard of it Feijoa sellowiana.
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I know this plant from conservatory culture only. Have you tried sucking nectar from the flowers? It's lovely. Yours is a nicer colour form than I've seen before.
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It seems the thing should now be called Acca sellowiana... still means nothing to me! I have never seen it but it looks charming and so much the better if you can use the flowers as decorative food! You'll need to encourage more than one to make that worthwhile though, Mick! Seems quite unusual that you are able to grow it outside, Mick, even if some cold is needed to get good flowers, I read??!!
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Even in Hemsworth, they get sun (sorry Mick!). Bet it's been hotter there than it has in grey, drizzly Devon today.
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They grow in gardens in County Down. I first saw it and tried it in Castle Ward's garden
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Mick,
Feijoa sellowiana is what I have known it as though, as Maggi says, it is now known as Acca sellowiana. I have grown a shrub for over ten years and it has been hardy through all winters. Perhaps being rammed in between a Berberis darwinii and a Berberis temolaica and sheltered by Sorbus aria has allowed it to flourish here. It's an interesting shrub, nice to see the grey back of the leaves show as the breeze blows them.
Paddy
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Here are the fruit, rather scruffy versions. The commercial vars are larger, and very even in colouring. I should have cooked these already. They are eaten raw (the raw fruit have a beautiful perfume) but I prefer them cooked with brown sugar and served with thick cream. I had some this morning on my cornflakes. Delicious! :P
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nice to see the grey back of the leaves show as the breeze blows them. says Paddy
Yes, I liked that feature... almost as good as a rhodo ! Mind you, with the edible element, that IS an advantage over a rhodo!
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And if you don't get enough heat to get fruit on it, you can always eat the flowers! Well, the thick petals actually - an unusual taste with a bit of a bite!
cheers
fermi
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Fermi,
Unfortunately, we don't get the heat for fruit to set or ripen and so must be content with nibbling on flowers.
Lesley,
Another fruit which I believe is favoured in New Zealand it the quince. I had a great crop of quince last year - Cydonia oblonga - but could find no reference to how best to cook them as they are quite uncommon here. On the internet it struck me that nearly all the recipe ideas came from New Zealand. We tried what seemed the simplest one and were delighted - halved the fruit, took out the core, placed on a baking tray, filled core with honey, baked, server with creme freche. Beautiful.
Paddy
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I haven't tried that way Paddy but will do, this week. I bought some at my Farmers' Market on Saturday. (I say "my" because I'm Manager there.) I also make a quince paste which is a bit like the fruit leathers one can buy but less dry. It lasts for ever in the fridge and is superb spread thickly on a water cracker or any plain biscuit and topped with any cheese you fancy. I like quince paste and a blue cheese best of all. I also bottle some each year and add them diced up to fruit salads, or a quince crumble or slivered finely with meat of most kinds, especially anything gamey.
I've eaten quinces ever since my long ago childhood but in recent years they almost disappeared from our kitchens as fewer and fewer people bake or cook anything but most basic stuff. A great shame. However, many of the old orchards never got rid of their trees and now, with the Farmers' Market movement growing everywhere in the world - the western world anyway - quinces are back with a bang and very popular.
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Quick dash to the pantry, quick pic and here they are -
[attachthumb=1]
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Hi Lesley
Our small Quince tree lost its entire crop in a late spring frost, but then produced a single flower which went on to become a single, large fruit which had to be wrapped in an onion (mesh) bag to protect it from the parrots! My first meal at home was finished off with poached (stewed?) quince with vanilla ice cream - that's a nice welcome home, I think!
cheers
fermi
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Welcome home again Fermi. I'll bet you had a brilliant time and we're looking forward to hearing (and seeing) about it.
Yes, very nice dessert for home-coming. What is also worth noting is that the fruiting quince tree has truly beautiful flowers, rather like apple flowers but larger and lighted fragrant. With its old-looking, rather gnarled trunk, it's altogether something well worth growing.
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Lesley,
Would you believe I saw quince jelly - same as your 'paste' by the sound of it - for the first time about a fortnight ago in a new cheese shop which opened. Fabulous on a cracker with stilton.
Later on in our season I must pester you for another quince recipe. The quince tree has had a good set of fruit so I wait in eager anticipation of picking them.
Paddy
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I also make a quince paste which is a bit like the fruit leathers one can buy
says Lesley.....
What the blue blazes are "fruit leathers" when they're at home? Or even out on the tiles!! What the name suggests to me are those strips of dried mangoes etc that are soft and chewy and thoroughly delicious.... but you can't SPREAD them on anything...????? Never heard the term before... explanation, please!
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Jelly, Paddy is like an apple jelly, wobbly and quite transparent, if made well, and very spreadable. The paste is made from the whole fruit flesh (the solids aren't strained out) cooked to a mush then sugar added and very slow cooked to a very thick paste. I'm trying to think of something with a similar texture. (Imagine mashed potatoes, solid but spreadable.) It cooks to a glorious crimson colour so is beautiful as well as tasty. It's then dried quite a lot and becomes slicable, but not so much as for a leather. It takes a while to make but well worth it. I'll send the recipe privately.
Maggi, the leathers are exactly what you suggest. The fruit is dried usually in a dehydrator then spread very thinly to dry. It becomes dry to the touch. Different from the quince paste which has sugar whereas the leathers don't and so are not sticky to touch once well dried. The thin sheets are then cut into wide slices and rolled up. Very chewy. They can be made with just about any fruit, peaches, apricots, various berries, apples, whatever, and would have the seeds strained out before drying. They're great in kids' lunch boxes or for snacks, being sugar-free. Good too on a climb up a mountain instead of chocolate.
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YUMMY!!
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Lesley,
Your description of quince paste is exactly as we attribute to quince jelly, thick, very very well set, almost hard, slicable, not really spreadable - cracker, slice of stilton, slice of quince jelly = beautiful.
Yes, just as you say, apple jelly is a much softer set and is a strained jam. We usually make it with crab apples collected in the nearby ditches.
By the way, this is our time for making elderflower cordial, flowers collected from the trees around the farm, a few of the pink flowers from the dark leaved cultivars added to give a lovely pinkish colour to the cordial. Lovely with chilled sparkling water.
Paddy
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Portugal is the quince paste country. The Portuguese word for quince is marmelo and marmelada is quince paste/cheese. This word has of course now travelled all over the world as "marmalade" etc etc. - forget all those phony etimologies for the word marmalade!
The Spanish also enjoy quince paste, which they call "membrillo" (both the fruit and the paste). "Pâte de coing" in France.
Chloë
(still overworked, in hot north Portugal)