Archive for September 3rd, 2008

03
Sep
08

Dragon Fruit

I guess many people has eaten, or at least seen a Dragon Fruit before (aka Pitahaya or 火龙果/龙珠果, see Wikipedia). But seldom people know how does a Dragon Fruit tree looks like, and not many has seen how beautiful the flower looks like before it transformed into Dragon Fruit. Ok maybe you have seen the tree but I bet you have not seen the flower. The reason for this is that the flower only flourished in the night so unless you plant the fruit or you pass through a Dragon Fruit farm at night, most probably you don’t know what the flower looks like.

So you are in luck :) Your truly, erm… actually my dad plant some Dragon Fruits and I managed to snap some photo to share with you. Here goes…

Dragon Fruits tree. It is from the cactus family.

Dragon Fruits tree. It is from the cactus family. Father planted about 20 bunch of it.

Dragon Fruit flower blooms at night. It is a very pretty and smells nice too. The flower is quite huge, almost 2 or 3 times my hand.

Dragon Fruit flower blooms at night. It is a very pretty and smells nice too. The flower is quite huge, almost 2 or 3 times the size of my hand.

A look from another angle. The flower also known as Moonflower or Queen of the Night. Pretty name for a beautiful flower :)

Father is 'manually' transfering the pollen from one flower to another. This is because the flower only blooms at night so that's no natural agent that do the job. If you don't do it manually, all you will end up with is just a pretty flower, no fruit at all :)

Some flower is quite high so have to use chair and climb up. Dad is camera shy that's why he is not facing the camera directly :) Sorry for the half-nude photo because that's how my dad like to be. Mum is shouting from house that asking my dad to wear cloth as his son is taking his photo and going to post on internet. Sorry dad, too late... hehe... I hope mum wouldn't mind.

As you can see, there's plenty of flower and I tell you it smells so nice.

As you can see, there are many flowers blooming at the same time. The flower will last only 1-2 nights so you got to transfer the pollen immediately if you see the flower blooms. The smells in our garden that night was really nice :) Again dad is turning his back towards me.

This is how the flower looks like in the next day. All closed and ready to tranform into juicy sweet fruit.

This is how the flower looks like in the next day. All closed and ready to transform into juicy sweet fruit.

)

1-2 weeks later(sorry not sure) the dragon fruit will turn into red color. It is ripe now and ready to be serve....into my stomach :)

Hope you guys (especially those staying in BIG city) now have a clearer understanding about Dragon Fruit :)

Cheers!




 

September 2008
M T W T F S S
« Aug   Oct »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

Categories

Blog Stats

  • 9,501 rings