Durian

Agriculture | Durian | Durian is the name of a tropical plant from Southeast Asia, as well as the name of its  edible fruit. The name durian is taken from the skin of fruit typical of the hard and sharp that squiggly-like spines. Widely known and revered in southeast Asia as the "king of fruits". Durian  is a controversial fruit. Although many like the fruit, others can not stand with its aroma.

Indeed, plants with the name of the durian is not a single species but a group of plants of the genus Durio. However, the meaning of durian (without affixes) usually is Durio zibethinus. The types of other edible durian and are sometimes found in markets in Southeast Asia include lai (D. kutejensis), kerantungan (D. oxleyanus), kekura or turtle durian (D. graveolens), and lahung (D . dulcis). Henceforth, the description below refers to the D. zibethinus.

The complex taxonomy of durian is the result of addition and subtraction of many species of the genus Durio and family Malvaceae. Previously, he was wrong in Annona muricata (soursop) and this particular fruit is also a thorny skin green as the durian. The soursop identified by Malaysia was identified by the name " Dutch durian" to highlight the similarity of the both fruits. Another mistaken identifying is known by the notes of Johann Anton Wienmann (1800), which classified the plant durian with Castaneae.

Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei, are native to durian tree, but the Western countries has known the durian for over six centuries. Niccolo da Conti, a Venetian merchant who traveled to China and the countries of Western Asian in the 15 th century had mentioned durian fruit of its documents. Garcia de Orta, Portuguese doctor mentioned durian in his book called Coloquois dos simple e drogas da India, launched in 1563. The book, Herbarium Amboinense published in 1974 by Georg Eberhard Rumphius, a German botanist, also provides a detailed and well researched notes on durian.

The Portuguese introduced Durio ziebethuinus in Ceylon in the 16th century. Many new types were also introduced later. In late 1800, began the countries of South Asia that first became familiar with the plant to grow commercially in the 20th century. Edmund James Banfield, a  naturalist of Australian-origin, got one of the seeds of durian in 2000 a friend of his Singaporean and has planted the first in Queensland to introduce the durian to Australians. - AGRICULTURE

Durian