Monkey pot (Lecythis pisonis)
Description
Lecythis pisonis (cream nut or monkey pot) is a tropical tree in the Brazil nut family Lecythidaceae.[1] It is known in its native tropical America as sapucaia or castanha-de-sapucaia. The fruit is shaped like a cooking pot and contains edible seeds. Lecythis pisonis is a large, deciduous, dome shaped-tree with a dense leafy crown. It grows to a height of about 30 metres (98 ft). The trunk has ascending branches and much fissured, greyish bark. The leaves are pink as they unfurl but become mid-green with dark speckles later. They are leathery, oblong-elliptic with prominent midribs and toothed margins. The flowers form in racemes on the ends of the twigs in September and October. They are purple (occasionally white) with six petals and a central boss of golden stamens and are attractive to bees. The fruits are globose or oblong, cinnamon-coloured and woody, being 6 to 15 cm (2.4 to 5.9 in) long and 8.5 to 30 cm (3.3 to 11.8 in) wide. They have a rough pericarp up to 3 cm (1.2 in) thick and a tight-fitting lid that bursts open when they mature. The seeds are red or brown, elliptical and up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long. They take 11 to 12 months to ripen.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum:
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Ericales
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Family: Lecythidaceae
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Genus: Lecythis
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