I wish they all could be palatable fruit....

I've been looking at lots of trees (and bushes) lately and have admired all the interesting, and many times, luscious-looking fruits growing on them. Ripening nicely, despite the hot, dry weather we've been having. The trouble is, most of them are not edible; by humans at least.

What a pity. As you know, I enjoy harvesting and using wild foods when they're available. Mike and Kim once gave me a book on the subject and that summer, no milk-weed plant I passed was safe from scrutiny and a few actually donated some of their pods to my penknife and pot.  Bull thistles too knew the sting of my blade. Wild onions quivered in the breeze as I would approach them with a gleam in my eye and a trowel in my hand.  

I have found a few things here to harvest and I've written about them, repeatedly.  (maybe you thnk redundently) They've made me very happy. But hardly a day passes that I don't see yet another tree filled to overflowing with some sort of fruit. All too often, when I look up what it is, I find that its fruit, berry, or drupe, etc. has some sort of toxin, some sort of loathsome substance within it, that makes it a very poor meal for humanity.  Some of these poisons will make you regret ingesting them almost immediately. Others will just hang around in your liver in ones and twos until there are enough of them in there to start a riot, and then they'll let you have it. 

I haven't looked up all of these. Some are actually out of my reach. A few I've tasted and decided that they must have something noxious inside them because they taste so terrible. So, my research has been far from scientific.  Still....

Here are some of them.  Oh, by the way. I am using the word fruit unscientifically in this post to mean any of the ways seeds get carried. 

Look at these beauties on the palm in our yard.

They look good enough to eat.  

These are very juicy, but horrendously bitter and tangy. 

Look like a woman's hair with beads.

I think these two, above and below are some sort of date. They are nothing but pith and skin however. 

The fruit on this palm really reminds me of a Butia capitata, though I've never seen one so large. I wonder though. This tree is fenced in a yard so I'm not sure I could approach it to check the fallen fruit. Maybe I can first investigate olfactorily. That was, after all, the way I first became aware of the Butia tree I now harvest each summer.  

I had to include this one at the end. It is an old friend actually, the crab apple. 

It was nice to come across one fruit at least that's edible. 

Okay, before you read the last bit of this post, I need to put a little tune in your head.  I don't suppose you need to listen to the whole thing, you'll remember it as soon as you see the link.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmIsdMWzdaE&t=3s

East Auckland trees look slick,
I really dig those fruits they bear.
Love the southside palms, and that shape they grow, 
They knock me out when I'm down there.  

The western farmers' hedgerows really show me quite a sight, 
And the northern trees, you'd think their fruits were bliss,
They look de-lish but don't taste right....

I wish they alll could be palatable fruit,
I wish they all could be palatable,
I wish they all could be palatable fruit.....

New Zealand has the sunshine
And the fruits all look so sweet
I'd eat a fresh bowl of berries from a north island tree
If their toxins weren't so real.

I been all around this Auckland town
And I've seen all kinds of fruit,
Yeah, but too many rate such a very harmful state
If I swallowed them at best, I'd hurl....

I wish they all could be palatable fruit,
I wish they all could be palatable,
I wish they all could be palatable fruit....**

**  I've always enjoyed song parodies.  Weird Al Yankovic occasionally pulled a smile from me, but Paul Shanklin was a genius. I had fun working up my attempt.        -djf