Fruit Quiz

1. Name the fruit? 2. Name the principal country in which it grows?

3. The indigenous people name this fruit tree after a large animal - what animal and why?

4. What is the main commodity produced from the fruit? 

✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳

This fruit is particularly rich in Vitamin C - it is used locally to make jam, jelly and juice. The nut at its centre is eaten as a snack but also added to cooked dishes for added flavour. An essential oil is extracted from it's seeds being highly beneficial to human health and it is also used for cooking. The indigenous people put it on their hair and skin as it serves as a moisturiser. The skin of the fruit is dried and ground to make a substitute for coffee.

Clue:  The main product made from this fruit is finally processed in the Netherlands.

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The Month of April.........

..............gets its name from the Latin word aperio, meaning "to open (bud)," - plants are really flourishing and growing now.

 Erythronium revolutum - white beauty

 Erythronium japonicum "Pagoda"   

This month brings some capricious weather! April rains bring verdant pastures, but also umbrellas and rain boots! 

Fritillaria meleagris - snake's head fritilary 

April cold with dripping rain

Willows and lilacs brings again,

The whistle of returning birds,

and trumpet-lowing of the herds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Victoria Plum blossom

Will September herald plum pies and crumble? Not if the Magpies, Jays and Pigeons have their way, all of whom are busily feasting day by day on its blossom. 

The Aesculus hippocastanum - Horse Chestnut tree is opening it's palmate leaves, very soon I look forward to seeing this large tree covered from top to bottom with beautiful large white upright conical flower panicles. 

The Helleborus - Hellebore plants have been flowering continuously for the past three months, and even though they are now past their best they still remain attractive whilst busily producing new seeds within the flower heads.

 When April scatters charms of primrose gold

Among the copper leaves in thickets old,

And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,

To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

William Davies

 Alauda arvensis Sky Lark

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