Plant · P-531

Kei Apple

Dovyalis caffra

Kei Apple is a spiny, evergreen African shrub planted as a stock-proof, animal-proof hedge that also blocks wind and gives privacy year-round. Its bright yellow, apricot-flavoured fruit is too sharply acidic to eat raw, but the pulp is unusually rich in pectin, making it a reliable home source of setting agent for jams and jellies from lower-pectin fruit. The plant is dioecious, so a lone specimen never fruits - one male pollinates about thirty females - which also means simply not planting or removing males stops it from setting seed at all.