Where is star fruit from

Fruits are fleshy, with a yellow, waxy edible peel; the seeds are edible as well. When fully ripened, star fruit is crisp and sweet, and a good source of vitamins C and A, phosphorus, and potassium. Slices of the fruit look like stars—hence the celestial name. The flowers that precede fruiting are pink to lavender colored.

Seeds lose viability within a few days of removal from the fruit, so if you're hoping to use them to grow more trees, be sure to get them growing right away. However, trees started from your own tree's seeds may end up tart and could take years before they are productive.

Buying named cultivars and grafted trees from nurserymen is recommended to be sure you are growing the sweetest fruits. Starfruit trees are very familiar to Vietnamese locals, for the fact that they have been attached with the country for a long time. The fruit is also a familiar image in the Vietnamese fairy tale that has entered the minds of old generations, with the legend "eating one fruit and paying one piece of gold".

Photo: vietblend. Indeed, star fruit really brings gold benefits to this tropical country and its people. The fruit has a yellow or green shade, comes with 5 zones, or sometimes 6. There are two types of star fruit: sweet and sour. Sweet star fruit trees are usually pale green in color and have relatively small fruit sizes. Meanwhile, sour star fruit has darker leaves, and when ripe, it has a dark yellow color. Star fruit can be exotic to some foreigners.

To make it easy to understand, you can imagine the taste of starfruit as a combination of papaya, orange and grapefruit; others state that starfruit has the taste of pineapple combined with lemon. In general, it has a sweet and slightly sour taste and can be eaten immediately after slicing, but can also be added to other dishes and drinks. Just keep in mind to choose starfruit with a yellow color as it will be sweeter compared to the one in green.

Photo: dienmayxanh. Star fruit is a tropical and subtropical plant. The Javanese use the unique-tasting flowers in salads. Sometimes carambola tree parts are substituted for parts of A. The Malays crush the leaves and shoots and use it as application for chickenpox, ringworm and headaches. Vomiting is treated by giving a decoction of the leaves and fruits, while in India and China, the roots were made into a decoction with other ingredients and used to treat poisoning.

A conserve of the fruit is used to treat drunk people for bad bilious attacks and diarrhoea. Carambola fruit juice is used as a body coolant and drunk by those suffering from fever. In Indochina, lacquer workers rubbed the flowers over the itchy or sore parts of their skin, a condition arising from exposure to lacquer. The inner portion of the bark was used along with sandalwood as a powder application for prickly heat.

The leaves, roots and stem of carambola tree is believed to contain hydrocyanic acid. The production of economic fruits in south-east Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, p. Call no. Burkill, I. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula.