Star fruit (Averrhoa carambola)

Belimbing or star fruit (Averrhoa carambola) is a species of plant in the Oxalidaceae, a small slow growing tree, short trunk or shrub, many branches producing a broad rounded crown, the wood is white and turns reddish.

A. carambola has compound leaves, green, arranged circularly around the branches alternately, pinnate with a single terminal, opposite, 15-20 cm long. Leaflets are 3.8-9 cm long, ovate or ovate-oval.

The upper side of the leaf is smooth and green, the lower side is downy and whitish. Leaflets are reactive to light and tend to fold together at night, are also sensitive to sudden shocks and when shaken tend to close as well.

Inflorescences are purple or purple-striped, hairy. Flowers are arranged in small bunches at the ends of branches or sometimes on larger stems and stems, each bunch attached to the tree by a red stem.

Perfect flowers are bell-shaped in loose panicles that are multi-branched and have stalks. Each flower is 6 mm wide, 5 petals which have curved ends.

Fruit oblong, 5-6 angled, up to 6.35-15 cm long and up to 9 cm wide. The skin is thin, waxy and orange-yellow in color, juicy and yellow when ripe, crunchy in texture and star-shaped when cut crosswise.

The fruit has an oxalic acid aroma and tastes vary from very sour to slightly sweet. Each fruit has up to 12 seeds, 6-12.5 mm long, flat, thin and brown. Some forms of cultivation produce seedless fruit.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Oxalidales
Family: Oxalidaceae
Genus: Averrhoa
Species: Averrhoa carambola

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