Botanicals and Biologicals

Today's entry is on stuff that grows in the tropics. In an earlier blog entry, I mentioned that I had met the owner of Paris Bahamas skin care company who was processing poinciana seeds for her cosmetics company. I was surprised by her statement that the oil of the seeds has anti-oxidant properties. I collected a handful below. I wanted to know if the seed was edible. I didn't find out, but I did find out that the seed is 13.5% oil which is high and that it contains fatty acids. I have to do some more googling, because there are more poinciana trees around here than you can shake a stick at.


And then we have mameys. I have had Cuban mameys, and they were delicious. They were more like sapodillas. These had two huge seeds in them with a bit of flesh that wasn't that particularly sweet.

The two big yellow things that I am holding are the seeds from one of those. The flesh is a mere coating on the surface of mostly seeds. The taste of this had puke undertones -- not as much as jujus, but the fruit is highly disappointing as a fruit. Not a great future in the exotic, expensive fruit niche.