longan is now in season. when we talk about longan, we always include lychee to the conversation because the two have many connections. both longan and lychee are belonging to the family of soapberry (sapindaceae). they are native to southern china and asia. their fruit seasons are always in the sequence of lychee then longan. just go to fruit stalls or wet market and take a look. it is now all longan. earlier on, lychee was the star of the fruit market. their stage times are always one after another.
longan is an evergreen tree. it can have a lifespan of hundreds of year. alternate, compound leaves with 6-9 pairs of leaflets. small whitish flowers produced in terminal or axillary panicles. fruits are round with a rough, light brown peel and a sweet, translucent, whitish pulp surrounding a smooth black seed.
the longan was listed as near threatened (iucn 2.3) on the iucn red list.
龍眼 longan (dimocarpus longan) – kingdom: plantae 植物界|(unranked): angiosperms | (unranked): eudicots | (unranked): rosids | order: sapindales 無患子目 | family: sapindaceae 無患子科 | genus: dimocarpus 龍眼屬 | species: d. longan 龍眼 wiki