lychee

order: sapindales
family: sapindaceae
genus: litchi
species: chinensis

First Story

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26 october 2014

Lychee is a very sweet and fragrant fruit originating from south China. It is related to longan and rambutan within the soapberry family and is in fact very often mistaken with the former. It has a sweeter note not unlike longan with added sweetener. For optical differentiation, the fruits are minimally bigger than longans and its bright pink-red peels are more ruggedly textured. The size difference is also reflected in the plants' growth like the leaves and stems. I like to compare the flesh of lychee and longan with rambutan too, because all of them are white and translucent. It's not entirely easy to discern the trees when they are not bearing fruits. All of them have compound leaves with oblong to lanceolate leaflets that are somewhat drooping. They are soft and colourful when young but turn dark green when stiffened. Their flower panicles are also very similar in appearance, with lychee having the biggest bouquets.

Regarding the fruits, there's a saying "after the first day, the colour changes; after the second, the fragrance; after the third, the taste; and after the fourth, everything else changes". So keeping them fresh is really challenging. You usually want to eat them all on the day you buy them. Save some of the shiny black seeds to start new plants. I planted my seeds right after eating the fruits in 2012. They started to sprout only after a week. New thread-like shoots elongate without cotyledons and from them leaflets of compound leaves gradually grow bigger and bigger. New growths are so soft, they are hanging, as if they don't get enough water, the sun is too hot or the wind is too strong. I learned not to be worried about it, as they usually continue to grow and eventually harden off.

Lychee needs bright light to grow, but because new leaves are usually very tender I avoid the sunniest site. It prefers slightly acidic soil. The tendency of chlorosis is likely. Salt tolerance is moderate to low, so go easy with fertiliser to prevent burning. I regularly feed my plants and periodically flush out the accumulated salts in the soil with clear water. I prefer ammonia-based fertiliser over nitrate-fertiliser because that saves me the fuss about nutrient imbalance with most plants. In the summer when the plants are placed outdoor, I use manure-pellets. Though it hasn't been a problem for my lychee plants, scale insects on my longan plants have managed to deceive my eyes for a while. So I would say, watch out.

R.I.P

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21 april 2016

Unfortunately my lychee is gone after 4 years. It dried out completely once in the summer last year, from which it must have received a tremendous amount of damage in its root system. In the winter when it's so vital to watch its well-being, again I left it to dry out numerous times. It finally bid me goodbye. Leaves became crisp from the top down to the bottom. Sigh... You'll always be remembered as a beauty!

The lesson is: always keep the soil moist and never leave your lychee plants thirsty.