Published On:Tuesday, August 24, 2010

By Gardener Jack

PERHAPS nothing brings back memories of a Bahamian childhood more than the taste of a sweet ripe seagrape on a late summer's day.

Like Proust's madeleine it can open floodgates to the long forgotten.

Seagrape fruit not only has a distinctive taste, it has a haunting scent that is unique.

The size can vary from very spare and hardly larger than a pea to a plump one-inch diametre. Bahamian Out Island children know the locations of all the best trees along the coastline and keep them as secret as they can.

The seagrape tree (Coccoloba uvifera) comes in male and female forms but it is only the female that bears fruit.

The male puts out rudimentary flowers but never fruit.

The small white flowers are produced in a hanging column during early spring and are pollinated by bees.

The flowers give way to small green fruits that take months to ripen and look like clusters of green wine grapes.

Ripening occurs sporadically in individual fruits so that unlike wine grapes a bunch of ripe fruits cannot be cut at one time.

This means that a few days after collecting a bucketful of seagrapes from the shoreline the same trees can be revisited to produce another bucketful of fruits, and so on.

The leathery round leaves of seagrape make it one of the easiest of all trees to identify.

When they are young they are bronze-brown and appear to be highly lacquered.

In autumn some leaves turn dark red and fall but there is no wholesale loss of foliage.

The trees are famous for being able to endure extreme salt conditions yet produce fruit that is tasty and aromatic.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Public Works removed casuarinas from Saunders Beach and replaced them with seagrape trees.

Seagrape trees are native to tropical America so it is proper we have them decorating a Bahamian beach rather than an Australian invasive import.

Seagrape trees can grow away from the shoreline, and in the garden they can be judiciously pruned to form an umbrella shape that provides good shade.

Even better, the bunches of ripening grapes hang down from the flat canopy in one plane and make picking a cinch.

Most seagrapes that are not eaten out of hand are used to make grape jelly.

Seagrape wood is hard and is used for carving figurines and masks and such.

It is one of the favourite native woods used in smoking of meats and fish.

Used green or allowed to dry and then soaked in water, seagrape wood gives a distinctive smoke flavour that is mild and pleasant.

Seagrape leaves placed on top of the coals of a regular barbecue also produce an aromatic smoke.

Seldom seen but quite spectacular is the grandiflora version of seagrape.

The leaves can be up to three-feet across and are fairly floppy, nowhere near as stiff as regular seagrape leaves.

It is hard to dissociate seagrapes from coco plums because they inhabit the same general terrain. Although coco plum season is almost over there are still some ripe fruits about if you look hard.

Coco plum shrubs (Chrysobalanus icaco) grow to about 10 feet and the neat overlapping roundish leaves make it a good candidate for either a specimen tree or a hedge.

The seashore coco plum bears pinkish white fruits and the plants often stay at about three feet.

The red-tipped or inland coco plum bears dark purple fruits (usually called black) that are considered superior in taste to the white.

Unlike seagrapes, coco plums seem to be enjoyed only by children. While seagrapes can help quench a thirst, coco plums make it worse.

* For questions or more information please e-mail gardenerjack@coralwave.com.