Gardening with Tropical Fruit

The Langsat

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

If you’ve got a warm place and want something a little bit different, you might try growing langsat (Lansium domesticum) which is widely cultivated throughout it’s native Malaysia and bears very interesting fruit. This evergreen tree is a medium sized tree and has beautiful leaves up to a foot or more which are divided into 5 to 9 alternate leathery leaflets each 4 to 10 inches long and 2 to 4 inches wide.

Trees grow well over a wide variety of soils, but don’t like extremely dry conditions. Trees grown from seed develop slowly and may take 15 years or more to bear so often it is budded or grafted to get earlier fruiting and to propagate superior forms.

At maturity spikes develop from the older branches or from the main trunk which has clusters of tiny yellow flowers. From these develop fruit clusters that resemble bunches of large buff colored grapes.

Most fruits are round and measure one to 1-3/4 inches in size with a tough thin milky rind. The juicy pulp which is sweet surrounds several seeds in each fruit and seedless fruits are sometimes produced. The fruit is commonly eaten raw or may be preserved after removing the stem. Fruiting usually occurs in the late summer and early fall.

Because of it’s cold tenderness langsat can only be grown in warm locations or grown as a container plant in a greenhouse or conservatory in Florida. The biggest difficulty in growing the tree presently is finding sources. It is not commonly available in nurseries and most trees in Florida presently come from travels to areas where it is being propagated and people bringing back plants.

Trees are damaged by below freezing temperatures so that restricts it’s outdoor use in many areas except extremely warm areas such as the Florida Keys or lower peninsula part of Florida. It’s still worth the effort though and more and more people are attempting to grow langsat as a home landscape tree.

There are very few insect or disease problems with the trees and they seem to grow well with a minimum of attention. Some micro nutrient problems may develop in highly alkaline soils, but it’s not considered to be a difficult grower.