CAMBUCA

Among the numberless, native Myrtaceae fruits from Brazil, there are many that were distributed around the tropical parts of the world, such as guava, feijoa, pitanga, jaboticaba, yellow jaboticaba, grumichama, pitomba, Rio Grande cherry. Nevertheless, the cambucá, a superior fruit in my opinion, was unreasonably forgotten by the first foreigner explorers despite its qualities, as the well-balanced sweet-acid flavor, the soft texture, the medium fruit size, the high pulp content and the large fruit yield.

Even in Brazil, there are very little people who know it. We can find some trees called "Cambucaseiros" only in a few rare fruit growers’ orchards and in some botanic gardens. It was a very usual fruit at the Rio de Janeiro markets 60 years ago but today it disappeared due to devastation of its natural environment.

Its name came from the Tupi Indian word kãbu'ká, which means "The bud plant" (maybe due the cauliflower aspect).

Cambucá is a very slow growing, evergreen tree, reaching usually from 5 to 12 m high. The short trunk (30% of the total height), 30 to 50 cm in diameter, has a wide and dense crown of slender, spreading branches. As many other plants from its family, it has a smooth, thin, pale brownish-gray outer bark easily pealed off in large flakes to show the coppery layer below.

On the short (0.5-1.5 cm), finely hairy, petioles there are evergreen, opposite, elliptic-acuminate, leathery, glossy, curled margin leaves, 5-16 cm long, 3-5 cm wide, glabrous, dark green above and slightly downy, light green below. The round flower buds are 0.3 cm in size. The sessile, white flowers, with a cluster of numerous stamens 1.0 cm long, are born agglomerated in groups (2-8 flowers) over the branches axils or distributed around the stem.

The very smooth, short stalked, globular berry is larger than most Myrciaria and Eugenia. They are green at the beginning, turning yellow to bright orange-yellow when ripen, presenting many slightly raised longitudinal ridges. Some old books mention about the existence of fruits up to 9 cm large, but the trees that I know produce smaller fruits. Their size ranges from 5.0 to 7.0 cm in diameter and 4.2 to 5.5 cm in height and their weight from 55 to 140 g. Under the leathery, thin skin, there is a soft, grainless, juicy, orange-yellow, 0.4 to 0.7 cm thick flesh, similar to Peaches in texture. It involves an incredibly delicious, translucent, melting, yellow, 0.5 to 0.8 cm thick pulp that encloses one or rarely (5%) two hard, oblong, flattened, light purple seeds, easily separable from the pulp. Both, flesh and pulp, have a delicious, well balanced subacid to sweet flavor, resembling jaboticabas, grumichamas and pitombas, but without any trace of astringency or resinous aftertaste.

Cambucá is native from the Brazilian southeast coast, between parallel 21° and 24° south in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states. It is a very narrow area surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the "Serra do Mar" mountain ridge.

This is a very hot and rainy region with temperatures between 9° and 42° C and annual rainfall around 2.000 mm. However, this plant can be very well adapted to many different climates. There are well developed and good bearing trees in colder places as Petrópolis, over the hills around Rio de Janeiro (850 m in elevation and minimum temperature around 0° C) and Porto Alegre, situated 30° south and with temperatures changing from 1° to 40° C. In dryer places, as Campos or Piracicaba (annual rainfall < 1,200 mm), well-established trees can tolerate as much as 2 months of drought without irrigation. The tree thrives well in Recife, located at 8° south to the equator.

There is very little information about the existence of specimens growing outside Brazil. To my knowledge, it is an almost unknown fruit in the United States. Some specialized books give very few information, using no more than 5 lines to describe it.

There are some young seedlings planted in 1993 growing in Florida (Fruit & Spice Park and Bill Whitman), in Hawaii (Frankie's Sekiya Nursery) and in Sydney (Hans Muller). Even in subtropical areas, they showed to be cold hardy during the winter.

Cambucá is generally propagated by seeds. They remain viable for no more than one week when kept dried or four weeks when preserved in moist sawdust or sphagnum moss.

Seeds must be covered with a 0.5 to 1.0 cm layer of good soil and watered 2 times per day. They start to sprout in 2 to 5 months with 80 % of success. Most of them are polyembrionic, producing up to 5 or 6 air shoots. Only the strongest must be maintained. The seed bed must be sun and wind protected during the seedling growing. Usually they are planted 8 m apart, 10 - 12 months after germination, when they are 40 - 50 cm high.

Cambuca prefers a deep, rich, well drained soil and supports full sun. It is a very slow growing plant. Trees 5 and 10 year old, are just 1.0 - 1.5 m and 2.0 - 3.0 m high, respectively. Young trees must be pruned to maintain the trunk cleaned up to about 70 cm.

There is low variation in fruits when growing from seeds, meaning no selected cultivars and minimizing the necessity of vegetative propagation methods. Seedlings commonly begin to flower and bear between 5 and 12 years depending mainly on the climatic conditions. There isn't any used method for reproduction seeking to reduce this long time but, probably, the methods used in Jaboticaba culture will be successful. It’s easy to cleft graft using a plastic bag to prevent the moisture loss from the scion. Grafted plants take from 3 to 4 years to fruit.

Fertilization may be done distributing 500 - 800 g per year of mixed fertilizer (N:P:K ratio 10:10:10). When they start bearing fruits it is recommended to make 2 or 3 annual applications (800 g each) of 10:5:10 mix. The tree usually produces large crops. A 40 year old tree produced more than 500 fruits last summer without fertilization but with its roots watered continuously by a side stream of clear water. The Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden has a productive tree that is older than 80 year.

In Rio de Janeiro, flowering occurs from late October to December. The fruit ripening happens between December and February, when their color changes from green-yellow to yellow and orange-yellow. At the last stage, they start to get loose from the tree to fall over the ground, generally bruising the skin. During some rainy years, there is an additional winter crop between August and September.

The best time to pick the fruits is during the yellow stage when they can be stored for up to 1 week at 25° C maintaining their flavor with a full quality without overripe problems. At the orange-yellow stage, the fruits reach the full maturity and the external flesh turns softer, but they become very perishable.

The main disease is the rust caused by fungus (Puccinea cambucae and Uredo flavidula) that covers many parts of the plant with a red-golden dust of beautiful aspect. They are easily controlled. Occasionally, some trunk borer (Cratosomus undabundos and Stenoma albella), usual in others native Myrtaceae, makes holes under the bark and long galleries downward inside the branches requiring control practices. Sometimes, a leaf caterpillar (Chrysomphabus aonidium) may attack the plant.

Fortunately it presents another advantage opposing to most native Myrtaceae. Its harder skin prevents any fruit fly attack.

Fully ripe cambucás are prized to eat out of hand. We need just to take a knife and cut around the middle of the fruit to reach its delicious, natural jelly like, internal pulp with a spoon. The external flesh may be used to make jams, marmalades and pies. Both are used to make juices and ice creams rich in flavor and color. Their composition is given below:

Calories		66
Moisture		80.9 g
Protein		1.7 g
Glycerides		15.0 g
Lipids		0.8 g
Fiber		7.4 g
Calcium		21 mg
Phosphorus		22 mg
Iron		2.3 mg
Vitamin A		0.03 mg
Vitamin B1		0.04 mg
Vitamin B2		0.04 mg
Vitamin C		33 mg

The tree is very ornamental due to its dense canopy and the decorative effect when setting their fruits. Leaves and seed's decoction are used in homeopathic formulations against bronchitis and coughs. The astringent bark can be used in leather industry.

The resistant, elastic, fairly heavy (d = 0.91 g/cm3), light brown wood is adequate to make small tools and furniture.