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Pandanus julianettii
Also called Karuka Nut, Pandanus Nut
Karuka (Pandanus julianettii) is a dioecious tree of the screwpine family grown in New Guinea's highlands for its nutritious nuts. It needs moist soil, cool montane conditions and fertile ground, and is grown from seed in the wild or in cultivated stands.
The karuka (Pandanus julianettii, also called karuka nut and Pandanus nut) is a species of tree in the screwpine family (Pandanaceae) and an important regional food crop in New Guinea. The nuts are more nutritious than coconuts, and are so popular that villagers in the highlands will move their entire households closer to trees for the harvest season.
Giulianetti's type specimens were collected from Vanapa, British New Guinea (now southern Papua New Guinea). The tree can be found cultivated or wild on New Guinea, both in PNG and Indonesia (Central Papua and Highland Papua). Wild trees are found on the Huon Peninsula and in the highlands of New Guinea's central cordillera. In Papua New Guinea, the tree is most commonly grown in Southern Highlands, Western Highlands, Eastern Highlands, Enga, and Chimbu Provinces, and it is found in all provinces on the mainland except East Sepik. It grows in montane forests between 1,300 and 3,300 m (4,300 and 10,800 ft) in elevation in areas that get 2–5 m (6.6–16 ft) mean annual precipitation. It grows in both dry and wet soils, but prefers good soil fertility. Trees will grow in clumped groups of 5 to 10 individuals per hectare.
On New Guinea karuka is cultivated crop, and has been used as a major food source since nearly 31,000 years ago in the Pleistocene. In PNG nearly 2 million people (almost half the rural population) live in regions where karuka is commonly eaten. There is high demand for it in the New Guinea Highlands: Entire households (including pigs, who are sometimes fed the fruits) will move from the valleys to higher elevations at harvest time, often for several weeks. Each household will average 12 to 176 trees.
Fragrant Pandan · Pandanus brosimos · Pandanus conoideus · Screw Pine · Tahitian screwpine · Common screwpine · Screwpine
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Karuka 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.
