Plant · P-511

Breadfruit

Artocarpus altilis

Breadfruit is a fast-growing tropical tree whose starchy fruit is eaten at every stage, from a vegetable when green to a dried flour when mature, and it rivals cassava for protein. A single mature tree can bear hundreds of fruit a year, and the leaves and surplus fruit double as valuable livestock feed. It thrives only in frost-free, humid tropical heat and needs deep, steadily moist soil to fruit well. Most named varieties are seedless and grown from root cuttings, and an established tree throws root suckers that form a thicket if left uncut.