Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) often know as the Japanese medlar and also known as Japanese plum or Chinese plum. It is known as pipa in China where it is native to the cooler hill regions to south-central China. It is also quite common in Japan, Korea, hilly Regions of India (Himachal), Potohar and foothill regions of Pakistan and some can be found in some Northern part of the Philippines and in Sri Lanka. It can also be found in some southern European countries such as Cyprus, Malta, Italy, Spain and Portugal; and several Middle Eastern countries including Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey.
The large evergreen shrub or tree is grown commercially for its yellow fruit, and also cultivated as an ornamental plant. The flowers are about 2cm in diameter, white, with five petals, and produced in stiff panicles of three to ten flowers. The flowers have a sweet, heady aroma that can be smelt from a distance.
Loquat fruits, grow in clusters, are oval, rounded or pear-shaped, 3 to 5cm long, with a smooth or downy, yellow or orange, sometimes red-blushed skin. The succulent, tangy flesh is white, yellow or orange and sweet to subacid or acid, depending on the cultivar.
The fruits are sweetest when soft and orange. The flavour is a mixture of peach, citrus and mild mango. The loquat has a high sugar, acid and pectin content. It can be eaten as a fresh fruit and mixes well with other fruits in fresh fruit salads or fruit cups. The fruits are also commonly used to make jam, jelly and chutney, and are often served poached in a light syrup. The firm, slightly immature fruits are best for making pies or tarts. Loquats can also be used to make a light wine. It is fermented into a fruit wine, sometimes using just the crystal sugar and white liquor.
The loquat is low in sodium and high in vitamin A, vitamin B6, dietary fibre, potassium and manganese.
The Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis) is native to the Canary Islands and is also know as the pineapple palm or palmera canaria on the islands. A relative of the date palm, Phoenix canariensis it is a large palm tree, with a spreading deep green crown of leaves arching elegantly from its attractive, stout trunk. It is not uncommon to see Canary Island date palms pruned and trimmed to enhance this appearance. When pruned in this way, the bottom of the crown - also called the nut - appears to have a pineapple shape.
During a hot summer, drooping bunches of creamy-yellow flowers may appear. The fruit is an oval, yellow to orange drupe 2cm long and 1cm in diameter and containing a single large seed; the fruit pulp is edible but too thin to be worth eating. It is a slowly growing tree and a palm with a 10m trunk will be approximately 60 years of age.
The Canary Island date palm is typically cultivated in wet-winter or Mediterranean climates, but also in wet-summer or humid subtropical climates like eastern Australia and the southeastern United States. The palm is susceptible to Fusarium wilt, a fungal disease commonly transmitted through contaminated seed, soil or pruning tools.
The sap of the date palm is used to make palm syrup. The island of La Gomera is where most of the sap is produced in the Canary Islands.
The avocado (Persea americana) possibly originated in the Tehuacan Valley in the state of Puebla, Mexico and is is classified as a member of the flowering plant family Lauraceae. Avocado is a subtropical species and needs a climate without frost and with little wind. High winds reduce the humidity, dehydrate the flowers, and affect pollination. The fruit of the plant, also called an avocado (or avocado pear or alligator pear), is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed.
Trees at Finca La Sabina
The almond fruit is 3.5 to 6cm long. In botanical terms, it is not a nut but a drupe. The outer covering or exocarp, fleshy in other members of Prunus such as the plum and cherry, is instead a thick, leathery, grey-green coat (with a downy exterior), called the hull. Inside the hull is a reticulated, hard, woody shell (like the outside of a peach pit) called the endocarp. Inside the shell is the edible seed, commonly called a nut. Generally, one seed is present, but occasionally two occur. After the fruit matures, the hull splits and separates from the shell, and an abscission layer forms between the stem and the fruit so that the fruit can fall from the tree.
Avocados are commercially valuable and are cultivated in tropical and Mediterranean climates throughout the world. They have a green-skinned, fleshy body that may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical. Commercially, they ripen after harvesting. Avocado trees are partially self-pollinating, and are often propagated through grafting to maintain predictable fruit quality and quantity.
The almond (Prunus dulcis) is native to Mediterranean climate regions of the Middle East, from Syria, Turkey, Iran and eastward to Pakistan but widely cultivated elsewhere. The almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by corrugations on the shell (endocarp) surrounding the seed.
The almond is a deciduous tree, growing 4 to 10m in height, with a trunk of up to 30cm in diameter. The young twigs are green at first, becoming purplish where exposed to sunlight, then grey in their second year. The flowers are white to pale pink, 3 to 5cm in diameter with five petals, produced singly or in pairs and appearing before the leaves in early spring. Almond grows best in Mediterranean climates with warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters. The optimal temperature for their growth is between 15 and 30°C.
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Quince is the sole member of the genus Cydonia in the family Rosaceae (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits). It is a tree that bears a deciduous pome fruit, similar in appearance to a pear, and is bright golden-yellow when mature. The raw fruit is a source of food. The tree has been grown by landscape architects for its attractive pale pink blossoms and other ornamental qualities.
The tree grows 5 to 8 metres high and the quince fruit is 70 to 120 mm long and 60 to 90 mm across.
The immature fruit is green with dense grey-white fine hair, most of which rubs off before maturity in late autumn when the fruit changes colour to yellow with hard, strongly perfumed flesh. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 60–110 mm long, with an entire margin and densely pubescent with fine white hairs. The flowers, produced in spring after the leaves, are white or pink, 50 mm across, with five petals.
