Miracle Fruit Plant (Planta Milagrosa)

About the Miracle Fruit Plant (Planta Milagrosa)

Miracle fruit is a small West African shrub famous for a remarkable party trick. Its little red berries contain a protein called miraculin that, after you chew a berry, temporarily makes sour foods taste sweet: lemons taste like lemonade and limes like candy for up to an hour or so. The berries themselves are mild. The plant is slow-growing, neat and evergreen, making it an excellent pot plant for patios and balconies, and it can fruit several times a year. Grown on our farms in Yucatán and Chiapas and shipped via DHL.

How to Care for It

Grow in bright light with some afternoon shade. Acidic soil is essential: use a peat- or bark-based mix (pH about 4.5 to 5.8) and water with rain or low-mineral water if your tap water is hard. Keep evenly moist but never soggy. Feed lightly with an acid-loving plant fertiliser. Protect from cold below about 2 °C. Prune only to shape.

Grow fruit most people have never tasted. Our exotic fruit trees, from Monthong durian and Emperor lychee to jaboticaba, achachairú and red finger lime, are raised on our farms in Yucatán and Chiapas and shipped by DHL across Mexico. Most love heat and humidity; several do beautifully in large pots.

Growing Profile

Botanical name

Synsepalum dulcificum

Family

Sapotaceae

Native to

West Africa

Mature height

1.5–3 m

Plant spacing

2 m

Years to first fruit

2–4 years

Light

Sun to part shade

Water

Moderate

Cold tolerance

down to 2 °C

Best climates

Humid tropics, Subtropical

Grows in a pot

Yes

Ships from

Our farms in Yucatán & Chiapas