Abiurana is one of the quieter members of the food forest, a smaller cousin of abiu, and honestly one I haven’t gotten a great story out of yet.
The Basics
Abiurana is a common name applied to several closely related Pouteria species from the Amazon basin, all in the same Sapotaceae family as abiu, eggfruit, and sapodilla. The taxonomy on this one is a little tangled depending on who you ask, which is part of why it’s harder to find solid information on compared to its more famous relatives. It’s the kind of tree that reminds me how much of what grows in the Amazon still doesn’t have a tidy, agreed upon name, let alone a Wikipedia page, which honestly makes it more interesting to me, not less.
Origin and Habitat
Like its relatives, it’s a lowland South American tree from the Amazon basin that wants warm, humid conditions and doesn’t ask for much beyond that. The genus Pouteria is enormous, several hundred species spread across the tropics, and abiurana is really more of a regional catch all name than one single, tidy species the way abiu or eggfruit have become.
What It Looks Like
A smaller tree than abiu, with similar glossy leaves, milky latex sap, and small, round fruit, though ours hasn’t fruited yet so I can’t speak to it firsthand.
Uses and Flavor
Mostly eaten fresh out of hand where it’s grown, similar in general character to abiu, though I don’t have a personal tasting note to offer yet. A lot of these lesser known Amazonian Sapotaceae get eaten locally and traded at small regional markets without ever making it into any kind of wider commercial trade, which is a big part of why so little gets written about them in English.
Growing It Here
Planted right next to our abiu tree, but tucked in below the Queensland maple, so it’s shaded most of the day. It’s still growing, looks healthy overall, but with that much shade it may be a bit stunted, and there are still no signs of fruiting. Similar culture to abiu as far as I can tell otherwise, warm, humid, decent drainage, and generally forgiving.
Pests and Diseases to Watch For
Nothing notable to report yet, which given how little this tree has been studied compared to its relatives might just mean nobody’s looked closely enough. Fruit flies are a safe bet to watch for eventually, since that’s true of nearly every soft fruited tree we grow here, but I’ll update this if anything specific shows up once it starts producing.
Kenta’s Take
I like having a few of these in the ground precisely because nobody’s really written the story on them yet. It’s still finding its footing under all that shade, and give it a few more years, maybe abiurana will earn a real one of its own, like some of the others already have, once it actually decides to fruit for us.