The Rambutan fruits are ready to harvest in our garden!
It is a seasonal fruit giving its yield once a year! The rest of the year the tree has only foliage. From the time it starts flowering sometime at the middle of the winter, the tree takes a new look with tender leaves and new shoots.
The Rambutan received its name from a Malay word for hair, because the golf sized fruit has a hairy red or yellow shell. This fruit is rich in nutrients and anti-oxidants and has some definite health benefits.
However Lychee fruit belonging to the same family of fruits is can produce hypoglycaemia in malnourished children if consumed in empty stomach in the morning without having had a regular meal the previous night. The death of children in Muzaffarpur with encephalopathy might have something to do with consuming this fruit causing hypoglycaemia and coma, according to some evidence suggested by Dr Jacob John, retired professor of CMC Vellore.
These fruits are not native to India. They grow naturally in Indonesia and Malaysia.
A friend whose home I visited recently served me Rambutan from his garden. He planted the seeds he brought from Malaysia twenty years ago and has a good yield of the fruit every year. Now, the saplings of Rambutan is freely available in the nurseries.
There isa craze now to cultivate Rambutan plantation because of the commercial value of the fruits.
The succulent, fleshy and middle sweet fruit is rather special !
M.C.Mathew (photo and text)
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