Tamarindus indica seeds grow into the tamarind one of the world’s most important and widely used fruit trees, native to the seasonally dry tropical biome of the Comoros Islands and Madagascar not India, despite the name and popular assumption. The specific epithet indica means ‘Indian’, but reflects a historical misconception: Arab sea traders who encountered the tree being cultivated in western India combined their word for the date palm (tamr) with the Arabic name for India (hindi) to arrive at tamr hindi the origin of both the common name ‘tamarind’ and the scientific epithet. Records show it was already in cultivation in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean by the 4th century BC. The only species in the monotypic genus Tamarindus, it is now naturalised and cultivated across tropical Africa, the Indian subcontinent, South-East Asia, the Caribbean and the Americas. The sticky, acid-sweet brown pulp inside the sausage-shaped pods is one of the most widely used souring and flavouring agents in global cuisine from Indian chutneys and Pad Thai to Worcestershire sauce and Mexican agua fresca. Family Fabaceae.

Full sun; drought-tolerant; very long-lived (some trees over 200 years); adaptable to a wide range of tropical and subtropical soils; warm tropical conditions.

• Sticky acid-sweet pulp one of the world’s most versatile food souring agents across global cuisines
• Comoros and Madagascar seasonally dry tropical biome; NOT India despite the name ‘indica’
• Name from Arabic ‘tamr hindi’ (Indian date) a historical misnomer by Arab sea traders
• Cultivated in Egypt and the Mediterranean by the 4th century BC; now global in the tropics
• Full sun; drought-tolerant; very long-lived; tropical soils; warm conditions; Family Fabaceae

Tamarindus indica is the tamarind whose acid-sweet pulp has flavoured the cuisines of Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean for millennia, and whose botanical homeland in the Comoros and Madagascar is a surprise discovery behind a name that has led generations to assume an Indian origin.

IMPORTANT: Pictures show the adult plant, which is not for sale. The offer is only for seeds.