Some 3 billion people in the world live outside the cash economy in the world’s poorest nations. Food security and regular supply are their daily concerns. Chronic malnutrition is a leading cause of death and disease for them. Young children are amongst the most affected. One child every 5-10 seconds dies from undernutrition. Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness for someone every minute. Most people in tropical and subtropical countries are iron deficient.
Our goal is to provide information that enables people to choose the right plant for their environment, to give them stable food production and a greater choice of plants to enrich their diets and improve their nutritional wellbeing.
The plant fact sheets listed in this collection are only a small portion of those available from FPI. Please check your plant inquiries in the ECHO Search and reference the FPI plant database for further information.
Most of the plants selected to list here are further described in country-specific publications by Food Plant Solutions (FPS in the Search).
8000 Starchy Staples
7000 Legumes
6000 Leafy Greens
5000 Fruits
4000 Vegetables
3000 Nuts, Seeds, Herbs, and other foods
819 Issues in this Publication (Showing issues 5000 - 5000) Previous | Next
Citrus limon - Lemon
Edible Portion: Fruit, Herb, Spice, Flowers
A small evergreen tree with short spines. It grows to 7 m high and spreads to 3 m across. It branches freely. Young branches are often reddish. Leaves are about 5-12 cm long. They are green and drawn out to a point, with notched edges. The leaf stalk is usually not winged. The leaves do not have much of a scent. The flowers are white, with 5 petals and have a strong sweet smell. They are 4-5 cm across. The fruit is oval shaped and with a knob at the end. Fruit can be 7-15 cm long. The skin is fairly thin, rough and light yellow. The flesh is sour and the seeds are oval.
Citrus maxima - Pomelo
Edible Portion: Fruit, Leaves - Flavouring
A spreading, spiny tree. It grows up to 15 m high. It is dome shaped. The leaves are very large. They are glossy and oval and downy underneath. The leaf stalks have broad wings. Young shoots and stems have fine hairs on them. Flowers are large (2 cm) and creamy white. The flowers are produced in bunches from woody shoots. The flowers have a sweet scent. The fruit are oval or pear shaped. The fruit is very large (20 cm) with a thick skin. The skin is dotted with oil glands. The fruit are green but become yellow when ripe. They contain 11-14 segments. The flesh can be pale yellow or pink. Each segment of the fruit is covered by a strong membrane. Some kinds have many seeds, while others are almost seedless. There are several named cultivated varieties.
Citrus medica - Citron
Edible Portion: Fruit, Herb, Spice, Leaves
A small evergreen tree. It grows up to 3-5 m high and spreads to 2 m across. The stem is stout, erect and thorny. The leaves are green and 20 cm x 10 cm. The tree has fat spines. The leaves have teeth along the edge. The leaf stalk does not have wings. The flowers are white, star shaped and with 5 petals. They have a scent. The fruit are large and long, with a rough skin.The fruit grows to 15-25 cm long by 10-15 cm wide. The flesh is white. The fruit does not have a lot of juice. There are several named cultivated varieties.
Citrus sinensis - Orange
Edible Portion: Fruit, Herb, Fruit Skin, Spice, Flowers
An evergreen tree up to 8-10 m high. It spreads to 4 m across. The stem is short, stout and spiny. It has a dense, rounded crown. The leaves are dark green, sword shaped and tapering towards the tip. They are 5-15 cm long. The leaves have a sweet smell when crushed. The leaf stalks have narrow wings and the stalk is jointed to the blade. The flowers are white and have a scent. The flowers have 5 petals and occur either singly or in clusters. The fruit often remain green colour and don't turn orange when ripened below 600 m altitude in the tropics. The fruit are about 9 cm across. They have 10-14 segments.
Cocos nucifera - Coconut
Edible Portion: Nuts, Sap, Cabbage, Nuts milk, Apple, Palm heart, Flowers
A palm with an unbranched trunk. The trunk has ring-like leaf scars along it. At the base it is swollen and surrounded by a mass of roots. They grow to about 25 m tall. Dwarf varieties have been produced. The fronds are 2-6 m long. They are divided along the stalk into strap shaped leaflets. The leaflets are 60-90 cm long. They are narrow and tapering. Clusters of large fruit develop beneath the fronds. Male and female flowers are separate on the one stalk. Female flowers are near the base. Flowers are cream. The flowers are covered by boat shaped bracts. About 10-12 fruit/stalk is a good crop. Leaves are up to 5 m long. Fruit can be 25 cm across. The fruit are fibrous. The hard shell inside is filled with coconut milk and the white copra layer.
Durio zibethinus - Durian
Edible Portion: Fruit, Seeds, Leaves
A large evergreen tree up to 30-50 m high and with buttresses. The bark is dark red-brown and rough and peels off irregularly. The leaves are alternate and oval. They are about 10 to 15 cm long and 3 to 5 cm wide. The upper surface is smooth and shiny and the midrib is sunken. The lower surface is covered with silver scales. The flowers are on the older branches and form bunches of flowers where the lower flower stalks are longer. They have 3 to 30 flowers on a main stalk up to 5 cm long. The fruit are green to yellow, fat and up to 25 cm long by 20 cm wide. They have sharp spines over the surface. The seeds are completely covered with a yellowish soft very sweet seed covering. The fruit drop unopened. As the fruit ripens it splits open naturally into 3-5 sections which have large seeds embedded in a yellow coloured pulp. The seeds are oval and 4-5 cm long by 2.5-3.5 cm wide.
Garcinia mangostana - Mangosteen
Edible Portion: Fruit, Seeds
A medium sized tree 10-20 m high with bright glossy leaves. Trees keep their leaves all year. Leaves are 15-25 cm long and leathery. Male and female flowers are on separate trees. Commercial trees only have female flowers. Male trees occur but are rare. Flowers are produced on shoots near the end of branches. Female flowers have 4 cream petals and 4 sepals and a round ovary with a thick stigma composed of 4 to 8 lobes. No pollination is required because fruit develop without fertilisation. The fruit is dark blue with 4-8 white juicy segments inside the thick skin. Each segment is enclosed in fine pinkish veins. It is 8 cm across and has flower sepals attached to the stalk end. It leaks yellow sap from wounds. Fruit is produced on side branches near to the tips of the main branches. Fruit often have no seeds or up to 2. These are not true seeds but they will grow.
Malpighia glabra - Barbados Cherry
Edible Portion: Fruit
A small evergreen tree or shrub. It grows up to 5-7 m high. It often has several trunks. The branches are spreading and often
drooping. The leaves are opposite and oval to sword shaped. They are 2-8 cm long by 1-4 cm wide. They can be wavy along
the edge. They are dark green and glossy. The leaf stalk is short. The flowers have both sexes. The flowering stalks are short
with 3-5 flowers. The flowers are 1-2 cm across. They are pinkish red. The fruit is bright red. It is 1-2 cm across and has
several small seeds. The fruit resemble a common cherry. But is has 3 grooves and 3 seeds. The fruit are carried on the
outside of the tree. The seeds are triangle shaped.
Mangifera indica - Mango
Edible Portion: Fruit, Seeds, Nuts, Leaves, Flowers, Vegetable
An erect, branched evergreen tree. It can grow to 10-40 m high and is long lived. (Trees grown by vegetative means are smaller and more compact.) Trees spread to 15 m across. It has strong deep roots. The trunk is thick. The bark is greyish-brown. The leaves are simple and shaped like a spear. Some kinds of mangoes have leaves with a wavy edge. They can be 10-30 cm long and 2-10 cm wide. They are arranged in spirals. The leaf stalk is 1-10 cm long and flattened. Leaves are often brightly coloured and brownish-red when young. These tender leaves which are produced in flushes become stiff and dark-green when mature. The flower stalks are at the ends of branches. They are 10-50 cm long and branching. Up to 6,000 flowers can occur on a stalk. Most of these are male and between 1 and 35 % have both male and female flower parts. Fruit are green, yellow or red and 2.5 to 30 cm long. The fruit hang down on long stalks. The outside layer of the seed is hard and fibrous and there is one seed inside. Several embryos can develop from one seed by asexual reproduction. The fruit shape and colour vary as well as the
Manilkara bidentata subsp. surinamensis - Black Balata
Edible Portion: Fruit, Latex
A shrub or small tree. It is sometimes 1-2 m high. In the rainforest it can grow 40 m high. It then often has buttresses. The bark is greyish brown and deeply cracked. The plant has lots of sticky white sap. The leaves are 7-21 cm long and usually sword shaped and rounded at the tip. The leaf stalk is 2.5 cm long. The tree loses its leaves for a short period of time just before flowering. The new leaves and flowers develop together. The flowers are greenish-white. The fruit ripens reddish-purple to black. The fruit are edible.
