What is this fruit??

September 13, 2008 10:28 PM

What is this fruit? It looks like a kumquat, orange, sort of soft outside skin. Inside it has red gooey seeds, like a passionfruit. It is not sweet smelling, nor does it taste very good.

I googled passionfruit and it DOES look like that, but its a completely different color and it doesn't smell like anything.

Its orange, oblong shaped, grows on a sort of viney bush. Not really a tree. I've only seen it growing in people's yard along a fence. About golf ball sized, possibly a little larger.

posted by AsRuinsAreToRome to Science & Nature (13 answers total)

Any flowers on the vine? If it's a type of passionfruit—there are non-edible varieties—the flowers would be quite distinctive.
posted by mumkin at 10:38 PM on September 13, 2008

Response by poster: yes, they are just like passion flowers... it may just be one of the non edible kinds
posted by AsRuinsAreToRome at 10:41 PM on September 13, 2008

Pomegranate?
posted by b33j at 10:59 PM on September 13, 2008

Curuba, aka Banana passionfruit?
posted by zamboni at 11:14 PM on September 13, 2008

Or another example of the Passiflora genus?
posted by zamboni at 11:20 PM on September 13, 2008

Oooh, since you're in CA, it's probably the blue passion flower, aka Passiflora caerulea.
posted by zamboni at 11:23 PM on September 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I don't know, but I'd suggest that you don't eat anymore of it. Some wild fruits are poisonous.
posted by sixcolors at 3:02 AM on September 14, 2008

I was gonna say Quince....but Quinces smell AMA-ZA-ZING. (And taste gross unless jellied or pickled or whatever.)
posted by TomMelee at 6:48 AM on September 14, 2008

Persimmon? Different cultivars have different sized fruits; some are small. Plants vary from real trees to small shrubs.
posted by acrasis at 7:55 AM on September 14, 2008

Tamarillo?
posted by Asparagirl at 10:13 AM on September 14, 2008

Sounds like a persimmon.
posted by dilettante at 11:34 AM on September 14, 2008

I'm betting it's a non-edible passionfruit, then, if its flowers look like passionflowers. Also, passionfruit grow on vines. Quinces, pomegranates, persimmons and tamarilllos grow on trees, folks.

This would be one of those times where a picture would really help, though. Best you should look at some pictures of passiflora and see if any are likely candidates.
posted by mumkin at 7:06 PM on September 14, 2008

There are definitely orange passionfruits, as well as purple, red, and yellow. It's probably the one that zamboni posted above- the fruits of that variety are often pretty bland when eaten fresh.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:35 PM on September 15, 2008