Jackfruit Flowers

Male jackfruit flowers

My jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) has started flowering! Not that most people would call them ‘flowers’ - they’re not exactly beautiful and frilly. Jackfruit flowers are called an inflorescence and they are a compound flower made up of lots of little flowers. Jackfruit trees are also monoecious meaning they have both male and female flowers on the same tree. Usually male flowers are the first to appear, followed later by the female flowers. When the pollen of the male inflorescence is transferred to the female inflorescence, the fruit grows, and grows and grows… some varieties have fruit that can weigh up to 50kg!. Luckily jackfruit trees are ‘cauliflorous’ and bear their fruit on short stems attached to the trunk or large branches. Imagine a fruit the size of a small baby (actually that’s probably a large baby…) swinging around at the tip of some flimsy branch. Wise choice Mother Nature.

Another male jackfruit flower (It must already smell fruity to attract common fruit flies)

If you’ve ever seen a jackfruit, it is composed of lots of segments. (The botanical term for aggregate fruit like this a syncarp). Each of the segments comes from one of the thousands of individual flowers that make up the inflorescence, and each one needs to be pollinated for the fruit to form properly. The method of pollination isn’t entirely confirmed - some studies say wind, while others are favouring small insects like midges - but either way, after the deed is done your fruit should be ready to harvest in 5 - 6 months.

I’m still waiting for female flowers to appear. From what I’ve read some trees only produce males flowers in the first season so it might be a while yet….

My jackfruit tree