• Question: who ever answers this question the best gets my vote! Jackfruit is the only fruit that grows also from the tree trunk. What makes this possible?

    Asked by jacob to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 19 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      Thanks for the question, it’s a really cool question – I definitively learnt something! It’s a cool adaptation that the Jackfruit developped – while the male flowers appear in new growth among the leaves above the female flowers, the female flowers appear on short, stout twigs emerging from the base of the trunk or large branches; sometimes even from the base of the tree under the soil. Given that the fruit can reach 35kg, it’s seems like a sensible place to get the female flowers to appear.
      Now, has selection shaped first fruit size or female flower location? Probably shaped both jointly – plants with female flowers located at the right spots could develop bigger fruit, which means that these plants could spread better. Similarly, some individual plants could have start producing bigger fruits, but only the ones with the female flowers well located being successful. Anyway – very cool question 😉

    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Actually, jackfruit is not the only fruit that grows from trunks! Durain fruits also grow from trunks.

      One of the possibilities is that because these are very heavy fruits, they have to grow at the trunk or very close to it, since the branches would not be able to hold the weight.

      This is possible because instead of having flowers blossom at the tips of the branches like in other trees, they bloom close to the trunk.

      Hope that gets your vote! 😉 In any case, hope it made things clearer! 😉

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Oooo – pressure! lol
      The flowers that produce fruit grow from the trunk or lower branches first, so this is where the fruit grows. It’s thought that b/c the fruit is so heavy, it evolved to grow lower down on the tree.

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      The jackfruit tree bears fruits in the trunks or near the base of older branches from where the female flowers emerge in the first place. This is made possible by thick pedicels! I don’t think Jackfruit is the only one, another example is Durain.

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 19 Jun 2010:

      Since i had never heard of the jackfruit before your question, i decided to write to the Jackfruit Appreciation Society for more information (hence my delayed response). This was their reply:

      “Dear Miss Mee,

      Thank you for your intriguing email dated 18th June concerning the marvellous (our words not yours) jackfruit. Your suggestion that the Jackfruit is a rebellious fruit, hence its fruit not wanting to grow at the end of branches like ‘socially acceptable’ fruit is not entirely correct, and the origin of its name is not related to the naughty boy ‘Jack the lad’ (aka Jackass) who you went to school with.

      The fruit from the tree actually tend to grow near the roots or on thicker branches as they can grow to be very large and heavy and hence these parts of the tree can bear their weight.

      Finally, on the subject of naming a fruit after yourself, this is not something that the Jackfruit Appreciation Society would be able to accommodate, particularly since you wish to rename the orange after yourself. Besides, renaming the orange as the meefruit would cause confusion among regular customers of orange-related products (‘Can i have a glass of fresh meejuice please?’).

      I hope this clears thing up.

      Your sincerely
      Jack F Root
      Preseident, Jackfruit Appreciation Society”

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