Mysuru: While jackfruits usually grow on the extended branches of the tree, making it difficult for fruit lovers even to reach the branch unless they use a ladder to climb up the tree, there are some trees where fruits are grown on the trunk itself. The trunk bears the fruits from the bottom making it easy for people to pick and savour them once ripe.

In Mysuru too, we have two such trees and it is not very difficult to trace them. One is located at Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama on KRS Road in Yadavagiri and the other is at ‘Udayaravi,’ the residence of Rashtrakavi Kuvempu in V.V. Mohalla. Incidentally, the State Government is planning to convert Udayaravi into a Museum.

So, now to the question why does the fruit grow from tree trunk? What makes this possible?

Here is a scientific explanation

The jackfruit tree bears fruits in the trunks or near the base of older branches from where the female flowers emerge in the first place. Given that jackfruit is the heaviest among the tree borne fruits, reaching up to 35 kg in weight, it is possible that the trees bear them in the trunk or older branches that are strong enough to hold the fruit.

Another example is the durian tree, which is commonly found in south-east Asia. Durian fruits can weigh up to 4 kgs and emerge in large clusters from the trunk. Both jackfruit and durian have thick pedicels that hold these large fruits. Jackfruit trees bear male and female flowers in separate flower-heads.

The male flowers appear in new growth among the leaves above the female flowers. Female flowers appear on short, stout twigs emerging from the base of the trunk or large branches; sometimes even from the base of the tree under the soil.

Durian flowers appear as a cluster and have bisexual flowers borne on short, thick twigs. The stigma (female part) matures much earlier than the anther bearing stamens (male part) enabling cross-pollination.

[Courtesy, Donald Danforth Plant Science Centre St. Louis, USA].