I’d agree: it’s a little insipid with a mild berry taste. Cooking it would probably be good. I’m not sure if I’d say it’s refreshing (like a wax apple is) because the texture is sandy and they’re small and supposedly you’re not supposed to eat the green parts.
Might be cuz the texture of the green parts of the berries don’t taste good, not because it’s deadly poisonous. Many other Campanulaceae have delicious edible leaves (Campanula spp. & Platycodon spp. being good examples) altho I haven’t studied the family throughly nor have I investigated Cyclocodon lancifolius much to confirm how leaves are edible.
Minor update on taste and texture: the next day the taste and texture improved. It may just be the ones I ate, but I’ll say they are definitely not a bad fruit like my description may have sounded before. They have a mild blueberry like flavor, with a firm texture akin to 50% blueberry and 50% red delicious apple, with some sandy texture due to the seeds. If you like firm, mild, and slightly herbaceous blueberries, these are for you. I like them very sweet and sour, so these still rank lower than a blueberry for me!
To borrow Jarrad s scale, sweetness is less than an apple around a 3 or 4, sourness is less than an orange also around a 3 or 4. However, a note about me, I eat lemons straight up and like it!
Fantastic! This sounds like a crop that has potential! Anyhow this could serve as a berry filler to extend other more flavorful berries. Is the firm texture they have Crunchy, Dense or more pectin rich? Just wondering if you could use them like pectin rich fruits (Hawthorns, Pears, Apples, Quince, ect) to achieve the same effect.
I’m not sure the difference between the textures you describe. My best description is probably the texture is reminiscent of a red delicious apple (the bad kind of apple texture) and it has some grit from having lots of little seeds. It has some firmness which is pleasant, but not exactly like a blueberry since they are filled with juice. These berries aren’t juicy but they do have a decently strong flavor which is similar to “artificial acaii/berry soda” mixed with some herbaceousness. I’m not sure how much pectin is in it or how to measure that. I don’t have any tools to measure acidity or brix or firmness, but they’d take some force to squish unlike a blueberry
ooh! So that’s why people describe them as Crunchy. Thank you for such thorough description of the flavor, I’m getting the idea of what they taste like. Since there also are other species of Spiderberry, I wonder how they compare? The wild species are smaller but maybe more flavorful? Kind of like how Small Wild Blueberries are more flavorful than the bigger domesticated Blueberries?
I just reread the original post about the flavor being like lettuce and a fig, while my initial taste was blue berry and herbaceous. I don’t disagree with the fig and lettuce description, it fits pretty well. The “berry flavor” is similar to a blueberry and a fig (like a dark berry flavor) and the herbaceous flavor is similar to lettuce.
It’s unfortunate that it seems to be a 9a plant- maybe it can be grown indoors in a pot? Is there any info on if the seeds need any startification before sowing?
The ones he got are much bigger than what I’ve seen people posting about in the US. I assume they’re an improved selection.
I agree, they look like the ones sold on those Chinese websites.
The people in the U.S. might’ve got a more wilder version.
I’ve eaten them. The ones I tasted seem smaller than his. Mine were the size of a blueberry about. I have seeds available for trade or sale if anyone’s interested.
Hello, I am interested in purchasing seeds of Campanumoea lancifolia. May you please tell me the cost? Thank you.
Hi there, if you’re willing to, I would also gladly like to purchase some seeds. I’ve been looking for some since several months
I have seedlings started and more seeds coming from a source on FB. Curious to see how they grow on the Texas Gulf Coast