Plant
Breadfruit
Artocarpus altilis
Also known as: Artocarpus altilis, ulu
A large tropical tree in the fig family (Moraceae), native to New Guinea and the Maluku Islands — domesticated and carried across the Pacific by Austronesian voyagers over thousands of years, becoming the staple starch of much of Polynesia. The species and its history are entangled with the 1789 Mutiny on the Bounty: HMS Bounty was a British Royal Navy mission to transport breadfruit seedlings from Tahiti to the British Caribbean as a cheap calorie source for enslaved laborers. The mission failed; the plant was later transported successfully and is now naturalized across the Caribbean.
Scientific
Artocarpus altilis is in Moraceae — same family as [[fig]] and [[jackfruit]] (a close relative). Reaches 20+ meters with broad lobed leaves and large round fruits ~20 cm in diameter, weighing 2–4 kg each. A single tree can produce 200+ fruits per year.
Most commercial breadfruit cultivars are seedless triploids; the seeded forms (sometimes called breadnut) are eaten differently — the seeds rather than the flesh are the main food.
Cultural and historical
Austronesian peoples domesticated breadfruit in island Melanesia thousands of years ago and carried the plant across the Pacific in their canoes — to Micronesia, Polynesia, and ultimately as far east as Hawaii. Ulu (Hawaiian for breadfruit) was one of the canoe plants — the founding crops Polynesian voyagers brought with them when colonizing new islands.
The HMS Bounty [[mission-district-sf|mission]] (1787–1789) was Captain William Bligh’s attempt to transport breadfruit seedlings from Tahiti to the British Caribbean, where the species was intended as a cheap calorie source for the enslaved plantation labor force. The mutiny en route (and Bligh’s famous open-boat voyage to safety) is the dramatic story; Bligh actually completed the breadfruit [[mission-district-sf|mission]] successfully on a second voyage in 1791–1793, after which breadfruit naturalized across the Caribbean.
In Polynesian, Micronesian, and increasingly Caribbean cuisine, breadfruit is roasted, baked, boiled, fermented (Hawaiian poi of breadfruit), or processed into flour. The starch profile is similar to potato; the harvest cycle is much longer-yielding.
Global production
Top producers: Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Jamaica.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Shares approach with: [[fig]]
- Member of: [[plants]]
- Cousin of: [[jackfruit]]
Sources
- Wikipedia — Breadfruit
A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].
What links here, and how
Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.
Scientific
cousin of
- Jackfruit auto-linked from body mention
Cultural
shares approach with
- Bodhi tree auto-linked from body mention
- Noni auto-linked from body mention
- Taro auto-linked from body mention
4 inbound links · 3 outbound