In The Public Eye

Palma Sola Park has always struck me as a rather well-kept secret, and recently I was glad to see it getting some much-deserved publicity. No doubt many club members enjoyed reading Premier Display of Rare Fruit in Park, by Richard Dymond in the Bradenton Herald, and if you missed it, just follow the link.

That reminded me of back in May, when I was organizing some of the club's tree sale paraphernalia. In a dusty box I came across a printout of an article, Cultivating Variety In Rare Fruits, by Dale White, published October 6, 2008 in the Sarasota Hearld-Tribune. Those who were MRFC members at that time may find it nostalgic, and for newer members, it contains some interesting club history. Below are some excerpts, but I encourage readers to follow the link to the entire article.

There is a catchy opener:

 MANATEE COUNTY - A local group of rare-fruit enthusiasts knows tastes and textures that most people have never encountered.

Lemons bigger than softballs. Cherries that range from sweet to lip-puckeringly sour. And mangoes in about 150 flavors -- including ice cream.

The 100 or so gardeners in the Manatee Rare Fruit Council grow those fruits and more, things so exotic they cannot be found in supermarkets.

The council, and other groups like it across Florida, provide fruit enthusiasts a way to share their knowledge and curiosity about rare fruits and how they can be grown, eaten or used in recipes

Their tongue-twisting list of edibles includes atemoya, cherimoya, carambola, grumichama, jaboticaba, white sapote, canistel, Maher black sapote, ortanique, Chinese imbu, soursop, rollinia, monstera and longan.

As strange as those names may sound, the fruit can look even stranger -- like alien cuisine from a science fiction flick.

A couple of well-known Pete's were featured:

"Mangoes are my favorite," council president Pete Kearns said.

And later:

[C]ouncil member Pete Ray is mulling over new possibilities for jaboticaba, a black fruit that grows on a tree's trunk instead of its limbs.

"It might make a good wine," said Ray, who once owned an avocado grove in Miami.

There is history:

The council took root in October 1986 when its founders gathered at the former Bayshore Public Library in Manatee County. It has grown bigger, and stronger, ever since.

And the birth of Palma Sola:

In January, the Manatee Rare Fruit Council will invite some of those other green-thumb groups to Bradenton to see its latest acquisition -- a coveted asset among Florida's rare fruit organizations.

This past spring, the Palma Sola Botanical Park on 17th Avenue Northwest in Bradenton gave the council about two-thirds of an acre. Kearns, Ray and other council members have planted about 40 trees, vines and other plants, including noni, pineapples, lychees, macadamia nuts and other produce not ordinarily grown in Florida.

In three to four years, their patch of Eden should be reaching maturity and provide a bounty of delicacies for the discerning palate.

"What we're doing here is pretty unusual," Ray said. "We want this to be the premier public display of rare fruit trees in Florida."

I think that Pete Ray got his wish, at least for Southwest Florida.