BOTANY OF FOUR IMPORTANT SAPINDACEOUS FKU1TS 



portion which is the delicious, sub-acid, semi-transparent, jelly-like 

 aril which covers the seed. This aril is usually of an azure white or 

 light yellow appearance which in some varieties inclines to a pink. 

 The seed is single, oblong, smooth and brown and loosely affixed at 

 the base to the pulpy aril. It is rudimentary in some varieties, when 

 the Chinese speak of it as like a chicken tongue, and quite large in 

 others. The embryo is erect without perisperm, 



The lychee might be described a little more fully as a fruit 

 which in size is about that of a very large strawberry or of a small 

 English walnut; it inclines a little more to the elliptical of the straw- 

 berry than to the oval of the walnut. When the fruit is fresh the 

 skin has the toughness of a thick-skinned grape but when dried snaps 

 open with the brittleness of a very thin, paper-shelled almond. The 

 skin is leathery and of various textures and always tends toward a 

 verrucose surface with angular tubercles. 



The different types vary in color from that of a highly tinted 

 strawberry to the greener tmt of a plum. The fruits form somewhat 

 in clusters, but are not bunched as in the grape. When fresh the 

 lychee breaks open and is eaten much like the grape. The flavor 

 and texture of the lychee might be described as midway between the 

 juicy sweetness of a highly cultivated grape and the sub-acidity of a 

 cherry. Some varieties are noted for their delicate, rose-scented 

 fragrance. In the dried form the fruit suggests somewhat the taste 

 and character of a large dried raisin from^which the paper-shelled 

 covering must first be removed. In this form some have compared 

 its taste to that of a large dried cherry or grape. 



The usual habitat of the cultivated lychee is on the foothills 

 or along the banks or dykes of streams of sub-tropical regions. 

 Although its precise indigenous stations have not been ascertained it 

 is doubtless native to South China and grows especially well in 

 Kwangtung and Fukien. A sour, hardy variety, known as the 

 "mountain lychee" or "shan chih" (fli^t) is found in a semi-wild 

 state in Kwangtung. The lychee is also found in Kwangsi and 

 Szechwan, and in Hongkong, Formosa and Hainan. Introduced 

 from South China it is now widely cultivated in India, especially in 

 the Bengal region and in British Burma. The lychee in cultivation, 

 at its best, is a low-altitude, water-loving plant, especially valuable 

 for planting along the dykes of streams in sub-tropical areas where 

 heavy frosts do not occur. 



