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Bactris gasipaes
Peach palm is a spiny, long-lived palm from tropical Central and South America, grown for its fruit and heart of palm. It needs warm, humid, wet tropical conditions with plenty of rain and well-drained soil.
Bactris gasipaes is a species of palm native to the tropical forests of Central and South America. It is well spread in these regions, where it is often cultivated by smallholders in agroforestry systems or more rarely, in monoculture. Common names include peach palm in English, among others used in South American countries. It is a long-lived perennial plant that is productive for 50 to 75 years on average. Its population has an important genetic diversity, leading to numerous fruits, colors, and qualities. The fruits are edible and nutritious but need to be cooked for 30 minutes to five hours. They also benefit many animals in the wild. Peach palms are also cultivated for the heart of palm, and the trunk can make valuable timber.
The peach palm grows wild in well-drained soils with various physical and chemical conditions, including acid and poor soils, since it is assisted by its association with mycorrhizas. It is grown in climates with annual precipitation between 2,000 and 5,000 millimetres (79 and 197 in) and annual mean temperatures exceeding 24 °C. The recommended altitude for commercial cultivation ranges from 0 to 800 metres (0 to 2,625 ft) asl. Peach palm is occasionally found at higher altitudes of up to 1800 m asl, as in Colombia's Cauca region El Tambo.
Bactris gasipaes has been used for food for centuries. Spanish explorers found a pejibaye plantation of 30,000 trees on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica, providing fruit that replaced corn in the indigenous diet. The fruit is stewed in salted water and peeled, the seed is removed, and it may be flavored with salt or honey. The texture both raw and cooked has been compared to a firm sweet potato, and the flavor to hominy, dry squash or roasted chestnut. In some regions, the fruit halves are filled with mayonnaise or sour cream. Raw peach palm contains irritating calcium oxalate crystals that disappear under intense heat. Sellers of the fruit (often, street vendors) cook the fruit for 5 hours the night previous to the sale; however, recent studies have revealed that the same effect can be achieved in 30 minutes inside a pressure cooker, or even less in dry ovens or microwaves, without significantly altering the flavour of the final product. The raw fruit spoils quickly but it can be stored as a dry meal or preserves. It can yield flour and edible oil.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Bactris gasipaes by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
