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
552 Issues in this Publication (Showing issues 5000 - 5000) Previous | Next
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.
Manilkara zapota - Sapodilla
Edible Portion: Fruit, Sap, Latex, Leaves, Gum
A medium sized evergreen tree up to 18 m tall. It can grow to 30 m in tropical regions. The leaves are 8-12 cm long by 2-4 cm wide. The leaves are green and shiny. The leaves tend to be clustered in spirals near the ends of twigs. The flowers are single and white in the axils of leaves. They are bell like and 1 cm across and produced on long stalks. The fruit has several smooth black shiny seeds. The fruit are normally in pairs and 5-8 cm across. It is rusty brown in colour. The fruit can be seedless or can have up to 3 to 12 hard shiny seeds inside. The seeds are flattened and about 2 cm long. The tree has a milky juice. There are several named cultivated varieties.
Melia azedarach - Bead Tree
Edible Portion: Fruit (Poisonous), Gum, Leaves, Flowers, Vegetable
A moderate sized tree. It grows 6-16 m high. It can spread 3-12 m wide. The trunk is round and the branches spread out widely. The bark is greyish-brown. The bark has long shallow cracks along the length. The leaves are alternate. They are twice divided and bright green. The leaflets are sword shaped and have teeth along the edge. They are 7-8 cm long by 2 cm wide. The leaf base has unequal sides. The flowers are lilac and have a honey scent. The occur in long open clusters in the axils of leaves. These are about 18-20 cm long. The fruit is fleshy and round. It is about 1-1.5 cm across. It is smooth and yellow. There are 4 tiny seeds in a very hard shell.
Melicoccus bijugatus - Spanish Lime
Edible Portion: Fruit, Seeds, Kernel
A large evergreen tree. It grows up to 20 m tall. The trunk is smooth and pale grey. The inner bark is orange-brown. The crown is dense, round and compact. Trees are separately male and female. Where bisexual flowers occur these normally do not set fruit unless cross pollinated. The flowers are small and greenish. They are in crowded, long stemmed clusters. The fruit is medium sized with green skin and white or yellow pulp. They are 3 cm across. The skin is tough. There is one seed inside.Fruit hang in clusters near the end of branches and look like grapes. There are several named cultivated varieties.
Morus australis - Korean Mulberry
Edible Portion: Fruit, Flowers
A shrub. It grows 3-6 m high. It loses its leaves during the year. The bark is greyish brown. The winter buds are large. In cultivation plants are 1-2 m high. The leaves have stalks. The stalks are 1-1.5 cm long. The leaves are oval to sword shaped. They taper to the tip. They are 5-14 cm long by 3.5-12 cm wide. They have 3-5 lobes. There are teeth around the edge. Flowers are of one sex. They are yellow. The fruit are red but turn almost black near maturity. They are about 1 cm across. Some varieties are described which vary on the shape of the leaves.
Morus rubra - Red Mulberry
Edible Portion: Fruit, Leaves
A very small tree. It grows up to 9 m high. The trunk is 40 cm across. The trunk is short and soon divides into stout spreading branches. The crown is dense and rounded. It loses its leaves during the year. The leaves are alternate and simple. Leaves are oval but can vary in shape on the one tree. They are 8-24 cm long. It tapers to a long tip. The base is broad and heart shaped. There are 3 prominent veins and teeth around the edge. The upper surface is yellowish-green and rough. It is softly hairy underneath. Leaves turn yellow in autumn. The flowers are small and yellowish. The male and female flowers can be in mixed catkins but usually are in separate catkins either on the same tree or different trees. They are produced in the axils of the leaves. The fruit are small and fleshy. They are in compact groups in fruits like raspberries. These are 22-30 mm long. They are red or dark purple and sweet, juicy and edible.
Musa acuminata - Banana
Edible Portion: Fruit, Flowers, Flower stalk, Stem
The banana false stems usually have black marks on them. The canal of the leaf stalk is like an open drain. There are dry flaps where the leaf stalk joins the false stem. The leaves are paddle shaped. These are diploid bananas. They can be seeded or seedless. The flowers hang down. They are pear shaped and yellow, white or cream. The fruit are yellow. This is the small diploid variety. Many bananas are hybrids between acuminata and balbisiana. See Musa x paradisiaca.
Musa x paradisiaca - Banana
Edible Portion: Fruit, Flowers, Vegetable, Stalk, Corm, Root, Bud
These are the main group of cultivated bananas. They can be classed into diploid, triploid and tetraploid kinds with various amounts of the A or B parents. They grow 2-9 m high. They are large non woody herbs with broad long leaves. Most kinds have several suckers. Bananas grow a soft firm false stem from an underground corm. The fruiting stalk eventually emerges from the top of this false stem and normally curves over pointing towards the ground. Fruit occur in clumps or hands along this stem. The male flowers are in a red bud at the end of the flower stalk. The colour of the stem, bracts, bud and fruit varies considerably depending on the variety. The fruit can be 6-35 cm long depending on variety. They can also be 2.5-6 cm across.
