sweetheart are much larger than any other lychee, ive never seen hak ip achieve golfball size. also the hak ip i got from harrys yard have a noticeable tanin aftertaste, it goes away somewhat when chilled, i think it comes from the seed. the skin had a pink undertone to it as well. hak ip have larger leaves.

Ive heard that these may be the same variety from more than one person which has me very confused. from my experience they are different in every possible way

I meant to write hak ip has DARKER leaves, im not sure if there is a size difference.

i'll post pics of the different lychees available tomorrow, which will hopefully help somewhat

The Sweethearts I've ordered from Lychees.com and also the ones I tasted from Phase's tree are completely different from Hak Ip. Like mango kush stated, both the Sweethearts from Lycheesonline and also from Phase's tree were were mostly just under golfball sized and there were quite a few that were golfball sized and larger. You can see in my old post where I have some Sweethearts next to a golfball.

My Sweetheart's leaves are average green color and are pretty large. Hak Ip leaves, especially some of the tree's at Ong's Nursery aver very very dark green and the fruit of Hak Ip are way smaller.

I've also noticed that Sweethearts have a majority of chicken tongue seeds, I would say about 95% very small or chicken tongue seeds.

I wonder if some nurseries may have received specimens that were misslabeled, grew up the trees and made their own air layers and then sold the air layers. Another nursery could have purchased some of these misslabled air layers and then the confusion spreads.

This is a great thread and its good we are all discussing our observations.
Simon

I think thats definitely what happened, Ive heard this misnomer before, even from lychree grove growers. top tropica1s also states they are similar when they are distinct in every way. Pine Island has correct pictures on their site. you can see the pinkish hue in the shell of hak ip i was referring to

sweetheart have much better flavor as well,