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The fabulously delicious fig – known to the Egyptians as the “Tree of Life” – is a wonderful addition to most backyards (and kitchens). A large, deciduous, well-shaped tree, the fig is an excellent shade specimen for small to medium sized backyards, and can be trimmed or trained into a manageable size or grown as a hedge.

Figs are a versatile fruit – they can be eaten fresh, glazed, dried, poached and cooked, and are a very healthy option as well. Figs are high in fibre and vitamin C and the sap of fig trees is reportedly useful in getting rid of warts!

As a sub-tropical tree, the fig prefers a Mediterranean climate with warm to hot summers and cooler winters so it is very suited to most areas of Australia. The hardy fig is quite adaptable though and will cope with cold winters, though if living

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Custard apples are a decadent and deliciously sweet-tropical fruit. The Australian custard apple is a hyrbid of the sugar apple (Annona squamosa) and the cherimoya (Annona cherimola), and is unique to any other custard apples grown around the world. Originally native to South America, this luscious and flavoursome fruit has Australia as its largest commercial producer.

There are four main custard apple growing regions, all found on the east coast of Australia. These regions stretch from the Atherton Tablelands in tropical north Queensland down to Lismore sub-tropical NSW, allowing for a great supply of quality and delicious fruit throughout the season.

Tropical North Queensland kicks off the custard apple season, with the first fruit of the year ripe for the picking in late January/early February, followed by Yeppoon in Central Queensland. The season then follows the coast down to the Wide Bay area, and the Sunshine Coast

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Casuarina equisetifolia, or Australian pine tree, is a she-oak species of the genus Casuarina. The native range extends from Burma and Vietnam throughout Malaysia east to French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu, and south to Australia (north of Northern Territory, north and east Queensland, and north-eastern New South Wales).

The specific name equisetifolia is derived from the Latin equisetum, meaning “horse hair” (referring to the resemblance of the dropping branchlets to horse tail). Common names include coast sheoak (coast she oak, coastal she-oak), beach casuarina, beach oak, beach she-oak, whistling tree, horsetail beefwood, horsetail tree, Australian pine, ironwood, whistling pine, Filao tree, and agoho.

Casuarina equisetifolia is an evergreen tree growing to 6-35 m tall. The foliage consists of slender, much-branched green to grey-green twigs 0.5-1mm in diameter, bearing minute scale-leaves in whorls of 6-8. The flowers are produced in small catkin-like inflorescences; the male flowers in

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Curtain Fig Tree is a heritage-listed tree at Curtain Fig Tree Road, Yungaburra, Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the largest trees in Tropical North Queensland, and one of the best known attractions on the Atherton Tableland.

The Curtain Fig Tree is of the strangler fig species Ficus virens. Normally these figs germinate on top of another tree and try to grow roots into the ground. Once this important step is accomplished, the fig will grow vigorously, finally kill the hosting tree and then grow on independently.

Although these figs kill their hosts, they are an epiphyte which basically feeds from the ground, unlike a parasitic plant which feeds from the sap of the host plant/tree.

Description source: Wikipedia

Image source: Queensland State Archives, Digital Image ID 877

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Lychee (variously spelled litchi, liechee, liche, lizhi or li zhi, or lichee) is a tropical tree native to the Guangdong and Fujian provinces of China, where cultivation is documented from 1059 AD. China is the main producer of lychees, followed by India, other countries in Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and South Africa.

A tall evergreen tree, the lychee bears small fleshy fruits. The outside of the fruit is pink-red, roughly textured and inedible, covering sweet flesh eaten in many different dessert dishes. Since the perfume-like flavour is lost in the process of canning, the fruit is usually eaten fresh.

Lychees are extensively grown in China, India, Thailand, Vietnam and the rest of sub-tropical Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and more recently in South Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, Australia and the United States.

They require a tropical climate that is frost-free and is not below the temperature

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The Banana Story

Next time you grab a banana, consider the fact that you’re about to devour the world’s very first fruit. Originally from the region that includes the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia, the Philippines and New Guinea, traders took bananas with them as they travelled to India, Africa and Polynesia. These bananas, however, barely resembled the fruit we know today. They contained many large, hard seeds and minimal pulp and were considered to be strange and exotic alien fruit. Cross-breeding of two varieties of wild bananas, the Musa Acuminata and the Musa Baalbisiana, in Africa in about 650 AD, resulted in bananas becoming seedless and more like the delicious fruit we enjoy today.

Origins of Pineapples

Pineapples are thought to have originated in Brasil and Paraguay in South America. They were first discovered by Europeans in 1493 on the Caribbean Island now known as Guadeloupe. Pineapples arrived in

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