roadside fruit trees of lim chu kang (1)

there are at least 15 varieties of fruit trees planted by the ava (agri-food and veterinary authority of singapore) along the many roads - most of them are actually called lanes - in lim chu kang. if you are not familiar with that area, you can end up going in circles because of the many lanes.

the miracle fruit trees are found mostly on both sides of neo tiew lane 2, where the soon-to-be-opened farm-stay chalets are located. the fruit is also known as magic berry because after eating this fruit, sour or bitter food will taste sweet. i have yet to see any of the trees bear fruit.

there are not many kedongdong trees and these are usually grown interspersed with the other fruit trees. you can find a few along neo tiew crescent, the road that leads to the sungei buloh wetland reserve. i used to be able to buy the fruit from bangkit market on weekends and from sheng siong supermarket on some occasions. in my kampong days, we called them buah long long.

the sour soup trees in lim chu kang are mostly planted along one of the side roads off lim chu kang lane 3. like most of the fruit on the trees in lim chu kang, they hardly get a chance to reach full maturity. once they reach the near ripe stage, some kiasu will quickly pluck it for his own safe keeping.

mangosteen trees take about 9 to 10 years to bear fruit, so most of the trees at lim chu kang are about that old. the ones that have started bearing fruit are found along neo tiew crescent and lim chu kang lane 9. by mangosteen standard, they are considered young. incidentally, there is one outside the visitors' centre at bukit timah nature reserve which is older and much taller. the older mangosteen trees tend to produce more fruit. a mature tree can bear a few thousand mangosteens.

i first came across nutmeg trees when i visited penang in the 70s. so, i was quite excited when i came across them at the lim chu kang area. like the kedongdong, there are not many of them and they are also interspersed among the jambu mawar trees along neo tiew road and among the duku langsat trees along lim chu kang lane 6.