are you able to tell them apart

- the rambai and the langsat?

tree at dairy farm nature park

today, i came across a tree, at the edge of the new dairy farm nature park car-park, the one nearer to petir road. it was laden with young fruit. at first, i thought it could be a langsat tree. then, i decided it could also be a rambai tree.

if you explore the lanes of lim chu kang, you will come across both the langsat and the rambai trees. the rambai trees - the fruit being inferior to the langsat - can be found growing on both sides of lane 5a. the langsat trees are more numerous and they can be found mainly along lanes 3 and 6.

rambai

langsat

it will take an experienced horticulturist to differentiate between the two cousins. to a layman, a langsat and a rambai look no different from each other, the tree as well as the produce. i had thought that they belonged to the same meliaceae family. but i have been mistaken; the rambai belongs to the euphorbiaceae family.

langsat

rambai

langsat

rambai

the rambai tree is normally bigger than the langsat tree. although it produces more fruit, it is not as desirable because of its sour taste. the unripe fruit is green and the ripe fruit is yellowish green. unlike the langsat, which always has five segments, the rambai fruit usually has between one and three segments; three being the majority. of course, there are the rare rambai fruit which has five segments.

lest you are thinking of enjoying the langsat fruit at lanes of lim chu kang, remember they are not as big or as sweet and tasty as the commerically produced ones which are selling at about $2.50/kilo.

there are other similar fruits in this family, like the duku and the longkong (the thai version of the langsat). the duku is bigger, the size of a golf-ball, and its skin is much thicker. it is golden brown in colour. the longkong is usually sold in bunches, with the stem intact.

to make a comparison between (duku) langsat and longkong, i bought a stem from sheng siong supermarket. the langsat from thailand is priced higher than the malaysian's. verdict: i still prefer the langsat from malaysia. the langsat is normally sweeter and tastier than the longkong.

duku-langsat galore at lim chu kang

they came on foot. they came on bicycles. they came on motor-cycles. they came in cars. they came in taxis. they came in trucks. they came in lorries. they came to invade the duku langsat on the trees along some of the roads in lim chu kang. for some, it was like a family weekend outing. armed with plastic bags, long poles and nets, they had a field day picking the ripe and big ones from the heavily-laden trees.

i tend to get duku-langsat mixed up with long kong, both fruits are available from sheng siong supermarkets. the long kongs are slightly bigger, juicier and sweeter, and almost seedless. some langsat can leave a slight bitter taste in your mouth. it is easier to tell duku apart from duku-langsat because of the duku's thicker skin and the fruit is also sweeter than langsat. as children, we used the skin of the duku as ammunition to whack our 'enemies'.

i saw one lone woman lugging a plastic bag full of langsat. she would have easily plucked about 3 kg of the fruit. some workers from the nearby farms were happily enjoying the fringe benefits by the road-side. quite a number were families and friends out on a week-end treasure hunt, were busily moving from tree to tree. besides duku langsat, there are also mangosteens which are also in season. but most of the mangosteens have however disappeared from the trees.

the sad thing about this fruit gathering is that some people in their greed to 'sapu' as much as they can, damage the trees, especially the mangosteen trees. because the tree is taller and some of the fruits are out of their reach, they pull down the whole branch just to get what they want.

as for me, i was there just to take pictures for my blog.