Black africanis and Black dragon are often confused because of their almost complete similarity. The difference is that Black dragon comes from the Philippines, and Black afrikanis from Indonesia. Since we do not know about the other differences (brix rate, size, etc.), we decided to combine the information in one topic.
Description
It is a very rare hybrid of Ocamponis x coniflorus x megalanthus hybrid with lots of thorns. The spines are very sharp and don’t come off the skin. Only a small fruit about the size of a Voodoo Child or Baby Cerrado. The color of the pulp is very similar to Desert king, only a little darker. Black fruits (slightly unripe fruit has a dark red color) are small in size, on average from 120 to 190 grams.
| Peel color: | Dark red, black |
| Flesh color: | Dark pink / blackish red |
| Pollination: | Self fertile |
| Sun: | Full to part sun |
| Brix: | 18 |
| Growth rate: | 5 out of 5 |
| Weather tolerance: | 4 out of 5 |
| Fruit production: | 5 out of 5 |
| Flavor: | 4 out of 5 |
| Home planting: | 3 out of 5 |
| Commercial planting: | 2 out of 5 |
It’s important to note that many photos of so-called “black fruits” on the internet are heavily photoshopped. It’s easy to change the saturation and tone of a photo of a piece of fruit. Some of them even have a filter that makes the skin look smoother.
Is the same trick as the blue Japanese maple seeds. If you see a fruit in a digital photo that is a bright and unusual color, it is most likely a fake or the colors have been pumped up artificially. Cheap phones with bad cameras do this all the time to hide how bad they are.
But this variety is real, but its skin is so prickly that I doubt it could ever be grown on a large scale. It can be bought in the US, but I think it would be pretty hard to find. I think it would be a great piece of fruit if you could get rid of the spines and keep the taste. An extremely prolific variety.
Conclusion
Dark Afrikanis is an extremely rare and understudied variety with good taste and fast growth. However, it also has significant disadvantages, namely a huge number of thorns and low fruit weight.
