What fruit is in the rainforest

Rainforests: shrouded in mist and mystery, home to animals beautiful and bizarre, filled with plants that can poison or heal. They are the subject of frequent campaigns calling for their protection, but what role do rainforests play in our daily lives? More than you might realize. Consider how different, and poorer, life would be without these seven everyday items.

Coffee

Do you kickstart your day with a cup of coffee? Thank the rainforest. Coffee is one of nature’s most traded commodities, supporting more than 25 million people around the world and driving the economies of countries throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa. Traditionally, coffee farms were almost indistinguishable from the forests that surrounded them. And today, some of the world’s best coffee still comes from farms where the beans grow under the shade of the forest canopy.

Bananas

If your breakfast features bananas, then you are relying on the rainforest to get your day off to a healthy start. This tropical fruit is part of a $5 billion global industry, which until the 1990s had a reputation sullied by worker abuse, rampant deforestation and the poisoning of streams and rivers. The challenges posed by conventional banana farming prompted the Rainforest Alliance to develop its unique approach to developing sustainable agriculture standards in partnership with local NGOs, scientists, community leaders, worker unions and farmers to transform the industry. Today more than 15 percent of all the bananas traded internationally come from Rainforest Alliance Certified plantations.

Açaí

Heralded as the superfruit of superfoods, açaí has become a bona fide health food craze. But Amazonian communities in rainforests where açai palm grows have have relied on this tree for generations. While in modern Western diets it is the berries—rich in protein, minerals and anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory elements—that have attracted the most attention, traditional Amazon communities use the palm heart as a vegetable and the fronds to thatch roofs. The oil from the palm is also considered to have medicinal purposes.

Cinnamon

Enjoy a cinnamon latte?  You’d be hard pressed to do so if it weren’t for the cinnamon forests in places like Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Cinnamon is literally the bark of the cinnamomum burmannii tree and is mostly grown by farmers on small remote parcels of land, nestled alongside other native trees. Once harvested, the bark curls naturally as it dries to form the “cinnamon sticks” we find in our grocery stores. Cinnamon’s good pal vanilla also grows naturally within a forest environment.

Black pepper

As the most widely traded spice in the world, the sheer ubiquity of black pepper might give it a pedestrian reputation. But peppercorn grows on the flowering vine of the Piperaceae family in tropical regions around the world, especially South Asia and Southeast Asia. It has been used as currency and presented to the gods as a sacred offering. There is virtually no cuisine in the world where pepper does not serve a role.

Chocolate

Chocoholics might want to thank the tropical forests for their buzz. Cocoa, like coffee, can be cultivated under the shade of a forest canopy and is found throughout West Africa, Asia and Central and South America. Unfortunately many cocoa farmers have cut down forests in order to grow more cocoa or full-sun varieties—a practice that weakens soils, destroys wildlife habitat and increases the need for agro-chemicals. The Rainforest Alliance works with hundreds of thousands of smallholders farmers worldwide to encourage a return to shade-grown cocoa grown. Why shouldn’t our favorite indulgence be healthy for the planet?

Palm oil

This rainforest plant has a dominant presence in our everyday lives and in global environmental controversy. Palm oil is found in food products, cosmetics, shampoos, soaps and a myriad of products most of us use daily. But irresponsible farmers have cleared natural forest to make way for increasingly large monoculture oil palms—to meet the insatiable demand for palm oil. Global efforts to the curb environmental destruction caused by palm oil production include the development of a Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, commitments from major multinational companies to purchase only sustainable palm oil and the Rainforest Alliance’s own training and certification initiatives.

Fruits like avocado, coconuts, oranges, lemons, grapefruits, bananas, pineapples, mangoes and tomatoes can all be found in the world’s rainforests, along with vegetables such as: maize or sweetcorn, potatoes, and winter squash.

What foods grow in the rainforest?

Its bountiful gifts to the world include fruits like avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples, mangos and tomatoes; vegetables including corn, potatoes, rice, winter squash and yams; spices like black pepper, cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, sugar cane, tumeric.

What plants live in the rainforest?

The tropical rainforest contains more species of plants than any other biome. Orchids, Philodendrons, Ferns, Bromeliads, Kapok Trees, Banana Trees, Rubber Trees, Bam- boo, Trees, Cassava Trees, Avocado Trees. Animals come in various colors which act as a camouflage to protect them from their pred- ators.

Are there bananas in the Amazon rainforest?

Bananas do grow in the Amazon rainforest. Banana plants are grown in the tropical regions of Central and South America where it is hot and has lots of…

Do bananas grow on trees?

Bananas grow in hot, tropical climates. Banana plants look like trees but are actually giant herbs related to lilies and orchids. The plant grows from a root clump (rhizome), similar to a tulip bulb. There are over 500 types of bananas!

What animals eat fruit in the rainforest?

Ungulates. Many rain forest-dwelling ungulates – animals with hooves – are herbivores, including the tapir of South America, which consumes herbaceous vegetation and fruit, especially bananas.

What happens to fruit that lands on the ground in the rainforest?

SEEDS and FRUITS OF THE RAINFOREST. Many of the seeds and fruits produced by canopy trees fall to the ground where they provide food for seed gatherers (rodents, birds, fish, etc) and create a natural seed bank in the leaf litter.

What can be found in the rainforest?

11 Amazing Rainforest Animals

• Mountain Gorilla. Mountain gorillas are the largest living primates on earth!
• Blue Morpho Butterfly.
• Okapi.
• Brown-Throated Three-Toed Sloth.
• Jaguar.
• Capybara.
• Scarlet Macaw.
• Poison Dart Frog.

How do banana trees adapt to the tropical rainforest?

Adaptations: Bananas have huge leaves, which help to capture lots of sunlight. They have a central grooved rib shaped like an internal drainpipe which enables them to shed excess water from the tip and funnel vast amounts of water to the thirsty base of the plant.

What is the most common plant in the rainforest?

The most prevalent type of plant that is found in the tropical rainforest is the tree. Trees make up nearly two thirds of the rainforest plants that grow in the Amazon, based on research that has been conducted by the Rainforest Conservation Fund.

Where can banana trees grow?

Today, banana plants grow in the humid, tropical regions of Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia where there are high temperatures and rainfall. Modern agricultural technologies also enable people to cultivate banana plants in non-tropical regions such as California in the United States.

Do pears grow on trees?

How to Grow Pears. Pears are excellent backyard trees. They produce a fruit sweeter and juicier than most apples; a fruit that easily ripens off the tree. After careful selection and early training, pear trees will require generally less upkeep than other fruiting trees.

What kind of fruits grow in rainforests?

Common Fruits. Some of the most common rainforest fruits are those with which people are quite familiar such as bananas, oranges, pineapple, papaya, tangerines, coconut, mangoes and lemons. The rainforest also gives us avocadoes, figs, dates, limes, grapefruit and passion fruit, among many others.

Are bananas safe to eat in the rainforest?

According to Rainforest Relief, Americans should still avoid purchasing bananas altogether and instead opt for fruit grown locally, such as apples, peaches, cherries or pears.

Why do fruit trees grow in the rainforest?

Rainforests have tropical climates that receive up to 80 inches of rain per year, which is excellent for the water requirements of fruit trees. The soil quality in rainforests is usually very poor. Fruit trees often provide their own nutrients from rotting fruit that falls from the trees.

What does a banana farm look like in Costa Rica?

Standing on a platform overlooking a Rainforest Alliance Certified banana farm in Costa Rica, all you see is green. The wide leaves of the banana plant stretch for miles into the distance, waving gently in the humid breeze. Purple banana flowers and bunches of green bananas hang down from the plants.