Bangkoro (Morinda citrifolia)

Two bangkoro-related memories from the 90s:

1. Seeing bottles of the expensive "miracle" fermented Tahitian Noni Juice during the Noni craze. Drinking it, thinking it tasted like a pretty bad sweetened thing, generally finding it exotic.

2. Seeing a curious fruit along the rocky Batangas coast. Climbing up the tree, jumping to get it. Trying to bite into it (too hard), chucking it in bag, forgetting about it. Regretting it-- it was completely mushy and smelled like rotten cheese. (See a similar specimen below.)



Also known as Indian mulberry, in Sanskrit it is called achuka, which means long life. We Southeast Asians seem to have passed the tree around-- here the bangkoro is also called bangkudo and bangkuru. In Malaysia, it is called bengkudu, while in Indonesia, mengkudu. The Ilokanos call it apatot, which in my view sounds like a word that could mean "smelly". In Sur, there is a town and beach named after the tree.

It is present in many tropical coasts and secondary forests. I have to say that from my perspective, this fruit has tried to avoid human food consumption by fooling us into thinking it goes straight from unripe to rotten. But in fact, the fruit is perfectly ripe when it starts to smell like some form of cheese gone bad, and the skin is soft and looking like a yellow blister that is ready to pop. Below are some unripe ones:



Believed to have been brought by Southern Indians to the Pacific Islands (have you seen how some Southern Indians look Polynesian?) about 1,500 years ago, the plant is now a superstar in the supplement subculture, having what seems to me to be endless medicinal applications.

The more interesting and less known of them:

• If your gums are rotting, char the fruit in fire, mix with sea salt, rub on problem area.
• Take the mush from the ripe fruit and put it over a boil to extract the pus head.
• If you have a wound or ulcer, rub some fresh leaves to slightly call forth their juice, and plaster it on the area.
• For congestion, fever, nausea, the leaves can be heated and applied to the chest area.
• If you don't get your menstrual period (and are female), a decoction of the leaves can help.
• If you still have some leftover from above, use it as a sore-throat gargle.
  
• Painful first aid! For deep cuts or broken bones (particularly those sticking out of your skin), pound a bunch of leaves with salt and apply.

The bark is used to make a red or purple dye, and the roots yield one that ranges from yellow to brown. Variations, I suppose, depend on your mordants. When you're using the roots, be sure to go for the thinner ones-- beyond half an inch yields almost no dye.

During famines, people have been driven to eat the fruits (unripe and bitter or ripe and presumably with cotton up their noses). Burmese sometimes include them (unripe) in curries, and aborigines eat it raw with salt. At all times, the young leaves can be eaten as vegetables.

Pick one and you'll find that it's actually an aggregated fruit-- many in one! Recently I was able to spot one while biking around. If you want to be sure the seeds are mature enough for you, search for ripe fruits, or those that have already dried out. I recommend wrapping them in some kind of large leaf to save you the hassle of cleaning up, as they are mushy. You're lucky if you get some that are dried out enough to not be messy about.



Plant the seeds and put the tree in full sun. From observation, they prefer lowlands and can thrive in sandy or rocky soil.

Mystery Trees

It's rainy season and that means the mosquitoes make it hard to garden. Nevertheless, I'm growing the following found seeds:

Mystery pod tree from National Museum garden.



Mystery berry (could it be related to bignay?) from Alabang.

On Leaf Thievery

But then again, it's not stealing unless someone's complaining.

I should have had the common sense to know this, but smaller (or "crunchy" and easy to pulverize) leaves are better for urgent garden conditions, as they decompose much faster.

I have been getting bags of larger and more durable leaves of narra (they smell so good) from subdivisions. As I observed them still whole many months later, I decided that next time acacia leaves would be ideal, as they are smaller and are easier to decompose.

But ipil-ipil leaves are even better. These nitrogen fixers are fast-growing and considered as a pest by many who are trying to "beautify" wasteland-like situations (or, most lawns and all that) with ornamental plants. Essentially, the land is asking for these many-seeded, leaf-shedding, supersprouters to colonize your land because it doesn't have enough biomass.

Recently, me and the partner in crime went scouring the areas for leaves and old construction material. Aside from lots of marble and colored glass, we were able to harvest ipil-ipil leaves that should turn into soil even faster, now that it's raining.



It was also a good day for stealing seeds, such as this Manila palm bunch.

Celebration of Seeds in Bonn, Germany

I just got in from Germany, where the UN is having its 9th Conference of the Parties (aka COP9) of the Commission on Biodiversity. Near the rail station of downtown Bonn is an exhibition by local and international civil society.

I was very happy to see a lot of booths tackling plant biodiversity, including a few focusing on traditional seed collection. It is quite amazing to see the colors and sizes that scream evolution. I chanced upon the Searice booth, which had little paper mache carabaos.

I met a Nepali guy who lectured me on the different varieties of rice beans. I don't see them much in their "normal" form, much less several varieties of them! The best part was when he gave me some large babies that I'd never seen in the Philippines before.

Fenugreek Sprouts

I was in a rush as our Santa Cruz roadtrip pilot arrived with the deluxe jet-car, and I didn't get to put the compost away.



The fenugreek seeds I had used for my tea had so kindly sprouted over four days! So, there it goes, fenugreek seeds germinate even when exposed to boiling-hot water for several minutes.

So the question is: do I eat them with a sandwich, or do I plant them?

In this case (or when things sprout without supervision), the best is to spare them and let them live, as they are probably moldy.

Growing Durian From Seed

Many people are shocked that I'm able to grow durian from seed. I guess even people in the metropolis view it as an "exotic" fruit, as it comes mainly from the south. But I'm telling you, the fruit can grow in Metro Manila! My tito who lives in a Paranaque subdivision was able to grow the sweetest durian ever-- on land that is coastal and primarily former wetland. Or actually, typical Manila suburbs. He just dumped copious amounts of compost on it.

Anyhow, either I soak the seeds in water for a day or two, or dump them in really damp compost, and they begin to sprout little yellow things (as pictured above). These will become roots and will bear into the ground. Later on, the seeds will lift up off the ground as the stem grows. The stem will be rough and twisty like an elephant's trunk!

It's pretty easy to grow, I think if you toss it in compost it will do just fine.

Updates! Chestnuts, Manga Chupadera, Durian, OMG Higadz

And so my chestnuts continue to burst through their hairy coverings to expose those frilled-up first leaves. They are growing out in a quite exclamatory manner, all three of them. In a decade or so, I will probably have enough nuts to feed a single miserable person hiding in a dark closet on Christmas Eve. I took the seeds from the side of the road at SEARSOLIN in Cagayan de Oro.

I also have quite an abundance of Manga Chupadera seedlings. Yes, those small sweet ones that are also called supsupins, of which you can stuff three or four of into your mouth. They grew out of my compost pile, which had considerably overflowed during mango season. They are funny seedlings, with three or four stems growing out of a single seed.

The durian seeds are also looking pretty good! The babies look strange. They look like little monsters.

But really, what everyone has been talking about back here, are the itchy caterpillars or higads. They go through this horrible hairy phase before becoming moths. My eggplant-plant, once full of promise and all that, now looks like a cheap umbrella would after running into a hurricane and a teething pup. It has also eaten a lot of the vines I was supposed to use as green manure. If it's any consolation, they leave a lot of frass (caterpillar poo) behind, which is supposed to be quite nutritious. Ah, the give-and-take of nature.

Chuck It In Some Soil!

One night, when I was five years old, I was eating some cold lychees after dinner. As I watched everyone push the seeds to the sides of their plates, it hit me: I loved lychees, lychees came from trees, trees came from seeds... why not "make" my own lychees?

On a mission, I saved my seeds and buried a couple in the soil next morning, alongside my mom's ornamental hoo-haws. Sure enough, it first came up unimpressive and twerpy, but it had the beginnings of a lychee tree nonetheless. I practised the patience demanded by ungrafted fruit trees. Eventually, however, I moved out and of course, forgot about it.

The story would have ended sans epiphany if I had not, two years ago, happened to pass by my childhood home and notice a hulking, enormous lychee tree, several times larger than me! I could not believe that this beautiful massive thing was sitting there because of me, or rather, my sudden burst of curiosity and initiative on that fateful night.

Of course, someone else may reap the benefits, but who cares? Everyone should remember that all it takes is a little effort to collect the seeds you usually throw, bury them under soil (or even hurl them into empty lots), and wait patiently for them to bear fruit (or forget about them), and enjoy their shade and oxygen along the way. Fruits for you, me, or the guy who will move into your house in the future, it doesn't matter! We have to save all these aborted baby treetus-fetus things!

Many of the first human "orchards" were found in old latrine sites, where ancient communities would poop out seeds, which would then grow. Chucking seeds into soil, we are agents of propagation. Fruit and food trees do not belong in plantations. They belong to the people, and they should be free, whenever possible.

Fresh food is a right! Viva los salvadores de semillas!!! :D