Sending payers to the people of Puerto Rico as they suffer yet another un-natural disaster. I’ll be sending money to but I will wait for @Caesar to let us know where would be best to direct it.
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I’m still trying to contribute to people that lost their businesses due to COVID lockdowns.
But I hope the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as the last hurricane, a major one, that pounded Puerto Rico.
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Thank you for the prayers my friend.
Apologies for the delay. I got my electricity back yesterday, I was on a diesel generator before that. The house internet wasn’t working, and the phone’s data was iffy for a while. I did manage to log in once, but (to answer the question) I wasn’t sure who was handling the relief efforts for Puerto Rico.
After doing some light searching with my parents on their social media, I mostly saw local businesses doing some fundraising, but I didn’t see any organized relief efforts that I could recognize.
My own house wasn’t battered too bad, but some people have lost trees, and I’ve seen landslides in several places, including some that sank a portion of road.
The big issue now is that not everyone has electricity… apparently some weird political posturing between the electrical company (LUMA) who wants to raise prices, and the local mayors, many of whom have been doing a great job of fixing things in Luma’s stead, removing any practical objections Luma may have had to providing the people with energy. I get the feeling we’ll be seeing repercussions to this eventually.
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Does anyone in se USA, gulf coast, high humidity semi tropical area grow some of the more obscure persimmon species? Not just pudding fruit but vietnamese fragrant golden apple or some of the other se asian fruit species?
Websites like Tradewindsfruit and rarepalmseeds have offered types I had only seen in reference books.
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I grew Jackalberry (D. mespiliformis) a few years back. It was doing decently well as five seedlings in a shared pot, but I planted it out too small and it didn’t make it. I’m currently trying out a strain of D. virginiana I got as seeds on the other forum (user: achetadomestica). Most of them are alive and seem to go through cycles between looking great and looking ratty. A black fungus attacks the leaves, but otherwise doesn’t seem to kill them. I’m optimistic about them.
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Mine do that sometimes on the seedlings in fall. It’s likely them just approaching “dormancy” there since the weather won’t induce it there naturally.
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Glad to see your back, Caesar. 
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Glad to be back, Randy. I’ve missed this forum and its folk. 
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Greetings South Florida peeps! I live in central Florida but will be down in Miami area next week for a few days next week. Does anyone have any suggestions for must visit nurseries or gardens in the Miami area?
I have been to Fruit and Spice Park once and plan to go again on this trip. Let me know if there’s anywhere else that I should check out. Thanks!
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Fairchilds Botanical Gardens is very pretty and they have a tropical fruit orchard. Yellow Green Market in Hollywood usually has a pretty good selection of fruits. I like Tree Amigos in Davie, smaller than alot of nurseries but usually have stuff I’ve never seen other places carry. Don’t know about specific nurseries farther south towards Miami, but I know there are dozens of them in the Homestead area.
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Have you ever been in contact with Craig Hepworth, Floridafruitgeek?
Thanks for the recs sharq. I’ll have a look at how close these places are to where we’ll be and try to check them out.
No, I have not been in contact with Craig Hepworth but I have enjoyed reading his blog.
It looks like a citrus wearing a persimmons skin. Haven’t seen it around here before. The only fruiting garcinia I have seen is Lemondrop (Garcinia intermedia) and I know Achacha has also been fruited in Florida. Button Mangosteen was for sale a couple of months ago at Tradewinds Fruit, otherwise I haven’t seen anyone grow or talk about it. Fruits from the Indonesia area tend to be more tropical than ones from Central/South America (or at least it feels like it) and are more difficult to grow even in South Florida.
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Genus dysphoria… a mangosteen self-identifying as a citrus or persimmon, depending on mood swings. 
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I tried to get some seeds like 2-3 weeks ago, but the seller was sold out. I have heard good things about it. Would definitely be marginally here, but honestly feels like everything is marginally in inland Central Florida. Too hot, too sunny, too wet, too cold. The one thing that always did well was citrus, and now its too sicky for them.
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Chupa chupa translates to “sucky sucky”
I don’t think many folks grow it outside of South America
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