Richard Lyons Nursery, Inc.

Rare & Unusual Tropical Trees & Plants, Flowering, Fruit, Native, Palm, Bamboo, Heliconia, Hummingbird, Butterfly

Jujube Tree (Zizyphus jujuba)

The Jujube tree is a fruit tree in the Rhamnaceae, or Buckthorn Family, that grows very well in southern Florida. Its origin is southern Asia and for 4,000 years it has been cultivated in China, where there are 400 known varieties. It can attain a height of 20 ft. and a width of 12 ft., and features  shiny green…
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February 25, 2017 0

The Little-Known Link Between France and Florida

How can a street a mere block long connect Paris and Miami? The idea seems preposterous. Clue: Take a peek into the botanical world. Victor Jacquemont (1801-1832) was a well-known and well-connected French biologist who has been described as “the most charismatic, tragic, and energetic natural historian of his generation.” During a brief stay in…
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February 11, 2017 0

Spondias dulcis: A Master of Aliases Exposed!

The investigative staff at Richard Lyons’ Nursery has never seen anything like it. Spondias dulcis has more names than an art thief on the run from Interpol: Pomme cythere in Trinidad and Tobago, cas mango in Cameroon and the Maldive Islands, juplón in Costa Rica, buah long long among the Chinese in Singapore, cajá manga…
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February 3, 2017 0

Under Any Name, You’ll Like Blackberry Jam Fruit

In the ideal world, when a plant name is changed, you’d prefer for the new moniker to be simpler than the old one. But life isn’t always fair, and there’s no better example than that of the plant commonly called Blackberry Jam Fruit. Long known as Randia formosa, the species is now named, alas, Rosenbergiodendron…
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January 27, 2017 0

U.S. Consumers ‘Discover’ Jackfruit

Fresh Plaza is an online publisher of news concerning the global fresh produce industry. An article it ran this week reports that consumers around the U.S. are discovering what we in southern Florida have known for a long time: Jackfruit is really good to eat! Richard Lyons’ Nursery has been growing jackfruit for over a…
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January 20, 2017 0