Hey Ethan. I've pretty much hitched my wagon to the garcinias! Jury is still out whether this is good or bad seeing how most require such exacting care and conditions and not to mention how long many take before fruiting.

I'm currently growing the following:
mangosteen...seedlings as well as grafted
magnifolia(madrono)...from seed
edulis/intermedia(lemon drop mangosteen)...from seed
livingstonei(imbe)...from seed
prainiana(cherapu, button mangosteen)...from seed
acuminata(achaicharu)...from seed
laterifolia(bacupari)...from seed
macrophylla(cherichuela)...grafted
madruno(madrono)...this may be misnamed as one above

Some of the above names seem to change nearly on a daily basis...no one being able to agree which is which. Another problem is that some of the common names may be used to describe many different varieties in different countries. It's really a mess. I'm now not even sure of a few of mine. I have found that at least 2-3 of them were misnamed when I bought them.

The rheedias/garcinias on the yahoo group are often a topic for discussion. Many of the members grow them and have had the pleasure of eating most. I've tried the mangosteen, edulis, macrophylla, may be a another one or two. No need to describe mangosteen! The edulis was pretty good but very little flesh. Macrophylla was awesome. I've been told that the acuminata, prainiana, and livingstonei are very good as well.

A lot of these are available from Bryan or Sadhu. Seeds for some of these can probably be obtained from someone who frequents the Fruit & Spice Park.

The easiest to maintain would probably be the livingstonei. They are not too fussy and after the first year or so, they really take off. I'm hoping mine begin to bloom this spring...at least I'm hoping. Unfortunately, this variety requires a male and female. Same for the prainiana and at least one other mentioned above. Most I believe do not. The prainiana has a lot of flushes but does not gain a lot of height as fast as I wish. This variety as well as livingstonei are great candidates for container growing. So I would go for at least these two.

Here are a couple of links that may interest you.
http://www.quisqualis.com/19imbejoy.html

http://www.quisqualis.com/28madjoy.html

Jay, where did you find you're grafted macrophylla?

A buddy of mine in Florida had a few and was kind and generous enough to offer them up when I visited last year. They are grafted from branches off of Bill Whitman's famous cherichuela...which makes having them a treasure.

This is one of those that have caused a lot of confusion and argument as to what it should be called. Whitman refers to it in his book as garcinia spp. Several of my garcinias above were obtained trying to get this variety. But because of the name fiasco...especially common names used to describe various varieties, I ended up with everything but the one I wanted so bad. Another issue is that many of these fruits look very similar in both foliage and fruit. Some folks are not sure whether they are the same fruit but different because they are growing in a different part of the world or...just plain different. Unfortunately, no authority has come out to give any final word..."I dub thee...".

Sadhu had some nice prainianas. That's where I got my two. It's a very attractive plant. I cannot say the same for the livingstonei. I like the foliage. I do not like the way the branches form. Everything comes out at 90 degrees. It's straight out...no matter which orientation. It's crazy! I do not believe it makes for a very attractive plant. The tree itself is also very weak and rubbery. Stakes, supports, ties, and pruning way back was the only means of making the plants support themselves. The branches droop way down when not pruned. Fairchild Gardens has a massive Imbe and it looks like some giant tangled mess. All the branches are just piled onto one another. So the only way to make a nice plant out of these is by heavy pruning and shaping...at least this has been my experience. The one thing in its favor is that I've been told by many that the fruit is very good. It's also probably one of the fastest growing garcinias. They are supposed to fruit in 3-4 years...usually. Mine will probably be the exception!

I just checked Sadhu's website and he offers the following:
laterifolia, prainiana, intermedia/edulis, livingstonei, magnifolia, spp?(may be the macrophylla). I've never been disappointed with any plant I've received from Sadhu. You need to get coax him into putting more newspaper in the box to keep the plants from shifting. Bryan may have some others or the same as well but his website rarely reflects what he has to offer. His shipping has always been top notch.

Excalibur had several of the intermedia/edulis in various container sizes...some already fruiting. Again, my problem with Excalibur with "some" of their trees is that these plants were in a spot where they were pretty much forgotten about. None have been pruned or taken care of and have probably long since out grown the container. You might get a good deal...depending upon Richard's mood at the moment!

thank you for all the info Jay,
I knew you had the Garcinia bug, but I did not realise you were starting your own clonal germplasm repsitory. Maybe you can hit Ohio up for funding your "research".

I think imbe might be my best chance though the lemon drop and button seem promising. I would like to pick up a female imbe with the male grafted on or find known male/female plants. I'd hate to wait and have them all be male or something.

thank you again Jay,
-Ethan

Good luck finding any of the the above plants as grafted specimens. Just ain't gonna happen. I begged, pleaded, and threatened all to no avail. And unfortunately, until the plants begin to flower, the sex will be unknown. Too bad there wasn't a home sex kit to test your plants! Your best bet is to get a hold of the largest seedling plants that you can. You may even check on Frankies in Hawaii. I only have two prainianas. My luck is slim that one is male and the other a female. Hell...my five imbe's will probably be all one sex!! You might be able to get someone from Florida to mail you cuttings of the imbe and try your hand at grafting them. They are difficult to get them to take. I've tried a few times and not one has taken. Others I've talked to that have tried have failed as well.

Out of everyone on the yahoo forum, not one person has a fruiting prainiana. The only ones I know of are/were at Bill Whitmans and in the Whitman Pavillion at Fairchild Gardens. I believe those are all grafted...probably from cuttings from Whitman's plants. It probably has one of the prettiest flowers I've seen. I'm sure it will be at least a few more years before I see any on mine. Slow slow slow.

I've had very good luck with G. xanthochymus - it's an attractive, easy to care for plant that grows pretty quickly in my climate (for a Garcinia, anyway). Most people would consider the fresh fruit too sour for out-of-hand eating, although I've found that eating a xanthochymus after a consuming a miracle fruit reveals a flavor approaching that of the mangosteen - really delicious.

My experience with the Garcinias is that they grow VERY slowly for the first two years and then just take off. My intermedias are growing very quickly now, as are my magnifolias and 'brasiliensis' (in quotes because I'm fairly certain it isn't a brasiliensis, but as it doesn't look like any of my other Garcinias I'll leave it be for now). The sad exception for me is the usual one, mangostana, which never seems to pick up any speed. :(

By the way Jay, I'm interested in seeing pictures of the Garcinias in your collection along with the names you've decided on for them - there's quite a lot of disagreement over here about Garcinia names, and I expect that a lot of the names floating around are actually synonymous.

Eldys,
Good call with the xanthochymus! We do the miracle fruit with carambolas purchased from the store. Much better.

I figured you would have several garcinias going down there. I really really wish I would have brought home one of the intermedias/edulis from Excalibur that weekend. The small seedlings are no quicker than mangosteens! Painful.

It's looking like what everyone was calling brasiliensis is actually laterifolia. My buddy Warren, who gave me the grafted cherichuelas, calls his garcinia mysteriosis! I'm at the point now where I almost just don't care. As long as the ones I believe are different from the others are in fact different, and they giddyup and start growing faster, then I'm okay with it.

So few people/places are growing any of these, they are just nearly impossible to obtain...at least any plants with size/age to them.

I'll get some pics of the plants and closeups of the leaves.

Jay, do you know if the macrophylla is a self fertile variety? BTW, you really need to stop posting about plants that I don't have. The credit card bills are killing me.

John...if only you could see how big my smile was!! I believe the macrophylla to be self fertile.

Well there's another one added to the list. Is Sadhu's the only place you have seen them? I hate paying that Phyto charge if I'm only getting one or two plants.

You could email Bryan at Montoso Gardens. Might try Frankies too then you could pick up the other variety of maprang!!! LOL!!

http://www.organicfarm.net/

http://www.montosogardens.com/ Like I said earlier, his website does not reflect all the stuff he has.

Good hunting man! Make me proud! Now I can look at my wife and say "See! I'm not the only one!!!".

I have to take a break from Frankies for a bit. That $30 processing fee along with the $48.00 to ship a 6lb package was a bit much for me. I wonder if it would be much cheaper if they shipped USPS? If this maprang does well I will probably break down and get the other one in the summer.

The thing with Frankies is to get more than one plant. That spreads the pain of the processing fee!

Eldys...here's the pics. The first ones is my grafted, multiple rootstock grafted mangosteen. It's done pretty well since I've received it. Obviously not flushing fast enough for me. But it's still alive.

Next are the seedling mangosteens of various sizes and ages. Slow slow slow and slow.

The magnifolia. I received these seeds from Felipe Osborne of Machabuca in Puerto Rico. Lots of nice pics on his website...machabuca.com

Edulis/Intermedia. Brought the seeds back from Florida last year. Eating the fruit at either Excalibur or Fruit & Spice Park.

Acuminata (Cherichuela). Grafted plants obtained from my buddy in Forida last year. Grafted from Whitman's tree.

Prainiana (cherapu/button mangosteen). Recieved these two from Sadhu late 2007. They flush regularly but are slow to gain height.

Laterifolia (achachairu). Received as small seedling from Montoso G. in 2006. This is the plant that was going around for a long time mistakenly named brasiliensis. Bryan from Montoso even had it named wrong on the cover of his book.

Madruno (madrono). Received as small seedlings from Bryan in 2006. The plant on the right is nearly as tall as I am.

Livingstonie (imbe). I believe I picked some fruit laying on the ground at the Kampong in 2005. In the last year or so they've really kicked it into gear...flushing constantly. I'm really hoping for a bloom soon. They take up a lot of room too. All of them have been pruned to some degree or fashion in the past. As you can see in some of the shots, the plant can have a tendency to grow in a christmas tree like shape if the central leader is left alone. The ones that do not have a central leader is where I had made graft attempts. The lack of anything there right now attests to how unsuccessful I was.

In this one, you can see how the branches do that 90 degree thing.

Jay, I'm a little confused on your labels. Is your grafted plant a acuminata or macrophylla? And the macrophylla that you mentioned was awsome may end up being the same thing as the Madrono that Sadhu sells? Your right, it's definitely confusing.

Sorry for the confusion...join the club! Acuminata is correct..cherichuela. When I first wrote down the list from way above, I was trying to do it from memory. Apparently that didn't work out well for me. So I believe the pictures are correct. It does give one a headache.

These names have my head spinning. I looked through Sadhu's site and could not find the magnifolia you mentioned seeing. So you are saying they are probably the same as the Madrono's he has listed which are probably the same as the macrophylla that you have tasted? I really don't care about the type, I just don't want to end up with a non self fertile tree that's fruit is not very good anyway. I want the Macrophylla since you mentioned it tasted great and I am probably going to get a laterifolia because of sadhu's description. I might end up getting a couple livingstonei because I actually like the look of it's growth. Kind of interesting looking at least.

I was looking back thru the yahoo posts when all of these were being discussed. They said that the laterifolia had a very good flavor that was close to mangosteen.

I'm going to have to plead ignorance on your other questions. I mentioned eating the macrophylla. I made the same mistake there as I did when listing my plants. The one I ate was the acuminata, or cherichuela, at Bill Whitman's. Unbelievable! Bright yellow fruit that looked like an elongated, bumpy lemon. The flesh was snow white cotton candy. If I would have had a knife in my pocket that day, I probably would have threatened everyone else to stay the hell away from the fruit! Seriously.

And like what a dumba$$ I was! I took a few home as well as a bunch of seeds. I didn't know jack about rare fruit at this time. I only knew that I was hooked. These seeds fall into that category of taking months and months to germinate...possibly of to 6. I ended up throwing everything out not knowing any better. I did notice that a few had tap roots started. Too late. Damage was done. Painful memory.

Livingstonei definitely need male and female plants. Unless you find plants already blooming, it's a crap shoot. I believe the laterifolia is self fertile. Look closely at his Madronos. There are two different ones with the same common name of madrono. You probably want the one from Ecuador. You would need multiple plants of the other...which may not be bad either because this variety will fruit a lot sooner than the other! Usually Sadhu shows whether or not the plant is dioecious. It's in his plant descriptions.

I honestly think that you should just go ahead and purchase all of the garcinias that he has to offer. Don't forget multiple plants for those that are dioecious! I'm there for ya buddy!

I don't think I can afford them all right now, but I'll definitely pick up a couple. Now I just need to start hunting for an acuminata seedling. It does not look like Sadhu has those.

ohiojay,
any updates for us on the mangosteens?

I have tried the Garcinia xanthochymus, they taste really good
made as a juice. make it as you would lemonade and its great.

I read that Garcinia xanthochymus seedlings can be used as rootstock for Mangosteen, is this true?,

I have some small mangosteen seedlings, also. i would like to get the Prainiana someday, but I didn't know about them being sexed. so that is a bummer.

Garcinia xanthochymus

Garcinia xanthochymus ( seedling from a fruit I ate )

Mangosteen seedling

My Sour Mangosteen-Garcinia xanthochymus is 2 years old! why does it grow so slow?

I got the seeds from a big sour mangosteen tree in Funchal, it's almost 20ft, I will post a pic of the tree this week for you guy's to see, last time I been there it had alot of fruits but still green!

When the seedlings are big enough, I'm going to graft them together like I done to the White sapote! then I will get scion from the mature tree to graft on the seedling!

A few months ago I picked up some G. aristata seeds off ebay. ( cuban mangosteen ) germination rate was like 90% and they are growing ok.

I couldnt find much info on cultivation for them, so I spread the pots in different spots around the back yard.

I noticed that some have very light colored leaves, they sprouted that way. anyway they do not seem to be that "sun shy" like G.mangostana

as for G. xanthochymus fruit. first time i tried the fruit, it was very sour, and intensely strong flavor, which reminded me of fruit concentrate you would buy at the supermarket, so I asked my wife to prepare it like she does passion fruit or lemonade ( added water and sugar ) and wow, it was delicious.

Here's the photos I promised to post! hope you guy's like them!:)

Wow nice tree. mines still a baby compared to that one.

Here is a two year old Garcinia Xanthochymus grow inside a greenhouse in Lisbon, Portugal. It was grown from a seed of the tree in madeira Island:

and a 3 month old Garcinia Mangostana:

more pics at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Easy-Permaculture/386790784721804

Ethan hasn't posted in ages. A update on how all that tropicalia has fared would be great.

I have Garcinia mangostana, xanthochymus and warreni. Only one of the xanthochymus is old enough and has been fruiting the past few years. Another xanthochymus or (hopefully) mangostana will be next.