Longan, A Plant Worth Having

Introducing dimocarpus longan, or longan for short, pronounced "low-han". Also known as the “dragon eye fruit”, longan hails from the soapberry family, which is botanically named Sapindaceae, with rambutan and lychee. This is such a fun fruit to eat!

The fruit sports a thin, semi-flexible shell that you pinch open and discard to get to the lightly sweet flesh. The center of the fruit has one seed that you work around, much like the knuckle on chicken bones.

It’s become habit to plant at least a few seeds whenever we enjoy this fruit because they are so easy to grow and delightful. Gorgeous green leaves begin as delicate, pink, new growth.

While it takes several years to fruit, having longan around is a comfort, to say the least. As they mature, I’ve used their natural pull to the sun to get some beautiful bows in the trunk. They have a graceful manner of growth, sprouting 4-6 even leaves with each new shoot. I’m sure the leaf count will increase as they age.

Matured specimen pictured is 2 years old.

The new babies pictured are under a month old.

New growth on mature plant, just a two weeks old.

Seeds pictured.

--Kong

Got these lovely botanical names from:

Wikipedia contributors. (2021, September 30). Longan. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:45, September 30, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Longan&oldid=1047286734