A lychee is a rare sub tropical
fruit originating in South China
where the lychee is very important
in their culture and is famed as
"the King of Fruits".
The lychee fruit is about 1 to
1 1/2 inches in size, oval to rounded
heart shaped and the bumpy skin
is red in color. Once you peel the
skin off, the crisp juicy flesh
of a lychee fruit is white or pinkish,
translucent and glossy like the
consistency of a grape, but the
taste is sweeter. Lychees have a
sub acid sweet taste and have a
wonderful freshness to them that
is hard to describe. Lychee fruit
is high in the antioxidant Vitamin
C and the essential mineral Potassium.
Lychee trees are beautiful hardwoods
that grow 20 to 40 feet tall in
a primarily dome shaped habit of
growth with dense, evergreen leaves.
Lychee trees are popular landscape
trees in South Florida and other
areas of the southern U.S. and container,
atrium or greenhouse growing of
lychee trees is becoming popular
throughout the rest of the country.
Lychee trees are grown commercially
in the US for the highly sought
after fruit in primarily South and
Coastal Central Florida where it
is warm and there is some winter
chilling, but little or no risk
of hard freezes.
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