Characteristic of a Longan Tree
Native to the subtropical highlands of Burma (Myanmar) and nearby eastern India and southern China, the longan tree (Dimocarpus longan) is closely related to the lychee, but flowers and bears fruit best if the winters are a bit chilly, with slightly subfreezing temperatures. The musky, sweet-fleshed fruits of a longan taste much like those of a lychee, but longan fruit skin is smoother and golden-beige with a honeycomb-like pattern. Does this Spark an idea?
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Growth Characteristics
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Across their native southern Asia, longan trees grow rapidly in moist, fertile soils that retain water but do not flood. Growth primarily occurs from spring to late summer, when newly emerging leaves accompany young, woolly tan-gray branch twigs. The bark is thin but corky and cinnamon to brown. If not grown as a fruit tree, it makes an effective tropical shade tree, maturing anywhere from 30 to 130 feet tall and 80 to 100 feet wide, with a broad, billowy, rounded canopy. In Florida, longans often attain dimensions of 30 feet tall and equally wide.
Foliage
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Longan trees remain evergreen, even when temperatures flirt with freezing. Each compound leaf is pinnate, or coarsely feather-like, with six to nine pairs of dark, glossy green leaflets. Each leathery leaflet resembles a tapering oval with broadly undulating or wavy or curving edges. In spring and early summer, branch tips bear new leaves that emerge an alluring, glossy reddish-copper tone. The leaves mature first in light green and then deepen to dark green.
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Flowering
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The wispy flower plumes of the longan tree attract bees and butterflies with lots of fragrance and nectar. From March to April -- spring in the Northern Hemisphere -- branch tips don an upright branched flower stalk (called a panicle or cyme) lined with tiny yellow-white blossoms. Each measures 4 to 18 inches tall. A cool, dry winter regimen, with temperatures in the 35- to 45-degree-F range, leads to more widespread flowering. Warm, wet winters causes more leafy twig growth. In warm, lowland tropical regions, longan trees irregularly produce fruits.
Dragon Eyes
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The name longan comes from the Chinese word longyan, meaning "dragon's eye." Inside the fruit is a hard, glossy, dark brown seed that resembles the eye of a dragon. Surrounding the seed is a musky, melon-tasting sweet flesh that is slimy and translucent beige. Botanically, the fruit is a 1-inch diameter drupe, structured like a plum or peach. The fruit skin easily slips or slides off the flesh when cut. Heavily bearing trees don the fruits on the many-twigged cymes left from flowering and weigh down branches. Fruits are ready for harvest in late July to mid-August.
Hardiness
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Grow longan trees in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8b through 10. It may be grown in zone 11 and warmer, but flowering and fruiting virtually ceases. The longan is neither tolerant of salt spray nor drought. Avoid alkaline soils and sands that lack organic matter.
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