Rambutan

Nephelium lappaceum

Sapindaceae

A hairy red soapberry of the Malay world — peel the soft spines, eat the glass aril, spit the seed.

Ripe peeled arils are food. The seed is not a snack. A lychee cousin, not a longan substitute in every recipe.

Parts used: Ripe aril
Traditional notes: Kitchen fruit · Traditional Malay dessert fruit
Grow · USDA 6b: Tropical tree, USDA 11. Equatorial. A named graft in the wet tropics. A pit north is foliage. In work: Jun · Jul · Aug · Nov · Dec
Harvest: When the hairs color fully (red, yellow, or orange by type) and the fruit feels full.

Two seasons in some equatorial gardens.
Do not refrigerate to death — a short cool, then eat.

Safety

The seed Known soapberry-fruit allergy

Lore

Malay rambut is hair. The Portuguese met it and still preferred the lychee in writing. A rambutan stall in season is a pile of sea urchins that learned to be fruit. The canned version kept the name and lost the point.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.