Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Mango Tree

Very ripe fruit from a mango tree (Mangifera) are relished by hermit crabs. They even eat the peel and the nut safely.

With some difficulty, we were able to remove the nut from the pit without damaging it. We planted the nut (saddle-side-up) in some organic potting soil and started a beautiful house plant indoors. The plant in the photo looks a little droopy, but the leaves straightened up as it aged a bit. When it is a little older we will conduct trials on the leaves and report our findings here.

The sprout and the young plant are pictured here:
mango tree sprout mango tree - young

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Had no idea hermit crabs ate mangoes. Interesting.

Robert Julius said...

Hey,

I planted a mango seed a while ago and it began to grow, but it died when winter came around.

How do you keep these as house plants? I'd like any tips as it sounds like something fun to do!

Thanks,
Kilimanjaro