Imbe

Imbe is a rare fruit, a large orange berry with an intriguing flavor. Different specimens seem to vary in sweetness from tart to sweet-and-sour to sweet. The skin is thin and the seed somewhat large, making it rather unsuitable for shipping, but it is a novel fruit that we expect to market in small quantities from time to time.

Imbe makes an intriguing landscape specimen due to its interesting foliage, and its unusal growth habit, with branches meeting the main trunk at right angles. It is very drought-tolerant, and can fruit in part shade.

Unlike many of the fruit species we grow, imbe is dioecious— there are male and female plants. However there are some hermaphroditic specimens, producing both male and female flowers and able to self-pollinate, and we are fortunate that at least one of our is. That one, IM-1, first fruited in 2017, while IM-2 is smaller and has yet to fruit. Here is a photo of IM-1 showing male flowers on the left and a female flower on the right.