Fruit and seed biometry of Carpotroche brasiliensis (RB) A. Gray (Achariaceae), a tropical tree with great potential to provide natural forest products

Abstract

Carpotroche brasiliensis (RB) A. Gray (Achariaceae) is a native tree species of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest with great potential provide natural forest products in agroforestry systems. The oil of its seeds contains medicinal and cosmetic properties, and the fruits are appreciated by wild animals. In this study, we analyzed the biometry of fruits and seeds collected from naturally-grown trees in agroforestry systems on small farms in southern Bahia, Brazil. Fresh fruit mass (FFM), fruit length (FL), fruit diameter (FD), number of seeds per fruit (NSF), total fresh seed mass per fruit (FSMF), total dry mass of seeds per fruit (DMSF), and mass of 1,000 seeds (MTS) were collected from 66 fruits of 18 trees on six rural properties. Seed length (SL) and seed diameter (SD) were also evaluated for 5335 seeds. From this sample universe, 697 seeds represented an adequate sample size to measure these dimensions with statistical precision. The fruits analyzed in this study had uniform values for most of the biometric variables among the sites. The average values of NSF, FFM, and MTS were approximately 88 seeds, 0.5 kg, and 1.3 kg, respectively. Seeds of C. brasiliensis obtained from freshly-harvested fruits had high water content, with an average of more than 45%. Strongly significant correlations between FFM and FD and between FMSF and DMSF indicate the possibility of developing simple procedures to estimate seed pro-duction for commercial purposes from field evaluations.