Sweet Heart
Sweet Heart
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Origin: China
Average Height: 20 ft.
Fruit Season: May - June
Cold Hardiness: 24° - 25°F
Fruit Description: Bright red clusters of small, 1-2 in. fruit. Bumpy red skin easily cracks in a perfect seam to reveal juicy, white pulp that is sweet, floral, and succulent.
More Info: Sweetheart is a premium variety introduced to Florida from Australia and hands down one of the finest lychee in the world. It is a consistent producer of huge heart-shaped fruit all having chicken tongue seeds. Production is close to that of Mauritius inspiring small commercial plantings by growers targeting high-end produce markets and gourmet restaurants. It is quickly becoming the variety of choice by dooryard growers for its reliability and superior quality.
Credit: Ian Maguire, UF/IFAS TREC
Lychee[2] (US: /ˈliːˌtʃiː/ LEE-chee; UK: /ˈlaɪˌtʃiː/ LIE-chee; Litchi chinensis; Chinese: 荔枝; pinyin: lìzhī) is the sole member of the genus Litchi in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae.
It is a tropical tree native to the Guangdong and Fujian provinces of China, where cultivation is documented from 1059 AD. China is the main producer of lychees, followed by India, other countries in Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and South Africa. A tall evergreen tree, the lychee bears small fleshy fruits. The outside of the fruit is pink-red, roughly textured and inedible, covering sweet flesh eaten in many different dessert dishes.
Lychee seeds contain methylene cyclopropyl glycine which can cause hypoglycemiaassociated with outbreaks of encephalopathy in undernourished Indian and Vietnamese children who had consumed lychee fruit.[3][4]