This large tropical tree is the Breadfruit Tree, Artocarpus altilis. It belongs to the mulberry and fig family, Moraceae, and is closely related to jackfruit. Breadfruit originated in the New Guinea and western Pacific region and was carried throughout the Pacific by people who valued it as an important food crop. It is now cultivated across the tropics, including the Caribbean.

The first thing to notice is the foliage. Breadfruit leaves are very large, glossy and deeply divided into pointed lobes. Their bold shape makes the tree easy to recognize, even when it is not carrying fruit. If a leaf, twig or fruit is damaged, the tree releases a sticky white latex, a characteristic shared by many members of the fig family.

Breadfruit produces separate male and female flower clusters on the same tree. The male flower is long, narrow and club-shaped. The female flower cluster is rounder, and many tiny flowers eventually fuse together to form what appears to be a single large fruit.

The fruit is usually round or oval, with green skin patterned by many small sections. Most cultivated breadfruits contain few or no seeds. The flesh is rich in starch, and when the mature but unripe fruit is roasted, baked, boiled or fried, its texture and aroma can resemble freshly baked bread. That resemblance gave the tree its English common name.

Breadfruit is generally cooked as a vegetable rather than eaten as a sweet fruit. It can be prepared in many of the same ways as potatoes—roasted, mashed, fried, made into chips or added to soups and stews. As it ripens further, the flesh becomes softer and somewhat sweeter.

The tree has supported communities across the Pacific for thousands of years. Many traditional varieties have been preserved by taking root shoots or cuttings rather than growing trees from seed. This vegetative propagation ensures that a new tree produces the same kind of fruit as its parent. The cultivated breadfruits familiar today developed through generations of human selection within a group of closely related Pacific species.

Breadfruit later became important in the Caribbean as well. The famous voyage of Captain William Bligh and the Bounty was organized in part to collect breadfruit plants in Tahiti and transport them to British colonies in the West Indies as an inexpensive food source.

A mature Breadfruit Tree is therefore much more than an attractive shade tree. Its great leaves, unusual fused fruits and long association with human migration and agriculture make it one of the world’s most important tropical food plants.