I first heard about the miracle fruit a couple of years ago, although it has been known to the western world for almost 300 years. I'm still amazed how few people have heard about it. I guess in my little scientific circle and in my greater San Francisco community (where even the most stiff collared of us are still more or less hippies) the miracle fruit has become quite popular. There was even a New York Times article a while back about this little marvel.
Quite simply, miracle fruit makes your tongue hallucinate. Eat a miracle fruit, and for the next half hour anything sour that you eat will taste sweet. Lemons, pickles, Tabasco, bad cheese. This is all thanks to a taste-modifying protein, aptly named miraculin, present in the fruit. The current thinking is that this protein binds to and alters the sweet receptors on taste buds, causing them to be stimulated by acids (sour flavors). One would think that a lot of research would have been performed on miraculin; however, only a couple of dozen research papers have been published on this subject since the late 60s.
Miracle fruit plant originated in western Africa. It is a member of the sapote family, which contains a number of species of excellent fruit trees. Synsepalum means together-sepal from the Greek syn and the Latin sepalum. Apparently the flowers have five fused sepals. Dulcificum is Latin for sweet-fig.
I have to confess two things. First, I have not actually tried a miracle fruit; however, I have several friends that have taken part in miracle fruit parties (where people eat the fruit and then sample various foods). I am waiting until my plants bear fruit in order to try this witchcraft. Second, I bought these seeds. I know, I know, I know, how horrible. That is completely against my ethic of stealing . . . I mean appropriating plants, but I could find no other way to get my hands on one. Miracle fruits, by the way, are the size of a cranberry, go for about $3 apiece, and do not store at all. You basically have to eat them within one to two days of picking them. Also the seed is only viable for about the same length of time. I bought a dozen (they sent me a baker's dozen) seeds for about $7 from a place in SoCal.
I planted my seeds in a 50:50 mix of peat moss and perlite. The plants need acidic soil, so the peat is really a must. I had 3 seeds germinate (23% germination rate), which is a typical yield for miracle fruit seeds. Even though my seeds were cleaned and sent to me overnight from the nursery, a little mold was already present on them. They were quick to mold in the pot but that didn't seem to have much of an effect on germination. After about a month, I had three sprouts. They are very hardy. I have heard that they grow very slowly their first year and then take off. Currently mine are 10 months old. For the first 9 months they hardly grew but now they put out a new leaf every other week or so. Thus far my guys are about 2-4 inches tall.
They are supposed to do well in indoor pots and will fruit when they are 2-3 years old (when they are about a foot tall). Even small plants can produce a high number of berries. I'm excited, but hopefully the novelty won't wear off after a while. If I get a regular crop of fruit I may try to sell them. We'll see.
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