Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Anchovy Pear

Grias cauliflora

Anchovy Pear
Photo: (c) M. Whitson, some rights reserved (CC BY), CC BY 4.0

Grias cauliflora, the anchovy pear, is an evergreen tree of wet tropical lowlands that often grows along rivers and marshes. Its key to growing it is steady moisture and warm, humid conditions.

Family
Lecythidaceae (Brazil-nut family)
Grows as
Tree, Palm
Light
Bright indirect
Water
Keep the soil consistently moist, as it naturally grows near rivers and marshes.
Soil
Moist, fertile, well-drained loam or riverside alluvial soil.
Temperature
Warm tropical conditions, about 20–35 °C; protect from frost.
How easy
Moderate
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
Jamaica, C. America to Colombia
Climate
wet tropical

About

Grias cauliflora, the anchovy pear, (also called the river pear) is an evergreen fruit tree native to Jamaica, Central America, and Colombia. It is often found near rivers or marshes in large colonies. It belongs to the Lecythidaceae (Brazil nut) family.

The edible nuts grow clumped together in large, round, woody and extremely hard seed pods the size of a large grapefruit. The meat of the seed (the "nut") is very rich in oil and grows from 7 to 9 cm long and 2 to 4 cm in diameter. The tree has fragrant yellow flowers about 5 cm across and grows to a height of about 15 m (50 feet). The anchovy pear tree bears spear-shaped, glossy leaves produced in palm-like tufts that reach an average length of 90 cm. The edible, brown, berrylike fruits for which it is cultivated for pickling are not related to the common pear. The fruit has a taste similar to that of the mango.

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Grias cauliflora 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…