Longans, Dimocarpus longan. |
Luscious Longans Protected in ARS
Collection By Marcia Wood October 21, 2004
Sweet and crisp-textured, exotic tropical fruits known as
longans make a refreshing snack. But you'll want to eat more than merely one,
not only because longans are small--a little larger than an olive--but also
because their translucent, white flesh is so delicious. The taste and texture
of longan and its larger cousin, lychee, have been compared to those of a
sweet, peeled grape.
America's official collection of wild and domesticated longan
trees from around the world is located in Hilo, on Hawaii Island, where it is
managed by the Agricultural Research
Service, the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
This modest collection safeguards longans that might otherwise
be lost as older commercial varieties are replaced by newer ones, or as native
forests of wild longan fall victim to bulldozers, insects or diseases.
Longans are among more than a dozen kinds of tropical crops
protected at Hilo in the laboratories, greenhouse, screenhouse and orchards of
what is formally known as the
ARS
National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Tropical and Subtropical Fruit and Nut
Crops. Researchers, breeders and other specialists worldwide can use the
collection.
Longan varieties that make up this living botanical library
include Tiger Eye and Ta u Yu from China, where longan is native; Si Chompoo
from Thailand; and Hawaii's own Kohala and Egami.
Research leader and repository curator
Francis
T.P. Zee at Hilo and a team led by ARS colleague
Paul H.
Moore at Aiea, Oahu Island, are probing the genetic makeup of longan. The
DNA techniques the team is using will help clarify who's who among the
collection's specimens and will resolve some of the confusion that resulted
when longan variety names were translated from Chinese into English. |