Basic

Grain legumes, also called pulses, are plants belonging to the family Leguminosae (alternatively Fabaceae) which are grown primarily for their edible seeds.

These seeds are harvested mature and marketed dry to be used as food or feed or processed into various products.

Being legumes, these plants have the advantage of fixing atmospheric nitrogen for their own needs and for soil enrichment, thereby reducing the cost of fertilizer inputs in crop farming.

Crops that are harvested green for forage and for vegetables are excluded, as well as those grown for grazing or green manure.

Also excluded are the leguminous crops with seeds that are used exclusively for sowing, such as alfalfa and clover (FAO, 2010).

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Table F-1a shows a list of fruits that should serve as a reference for fruit crops that are common in the distribution or grown as commercial crops in the tropics.

Emphasis is given to crops with fleshy dessert fruits including cashew which produces a pseudofruit.

Most of these crops are listed in E.D. Merrill’s A Flora of Manila published in 1912 but many of the scientific names have since been modified.

The crops are arranged alphabetically by their common names, generally English names.

This web page is one of two pages and consists of a list of fruits in the tropics with common names that start from A (acerola) to L (lychee).

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