Breadfruit Fruit

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae, growing throughout Southeast Asia and most Pacific Ocean islands. It is also grown in the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands of the Caribbean. Its name is derived from the texture of the cooked fruit, which has a potato-like flavor, similar to freshly baked bread.

Ancestors of the Polynesians found the trees growing in the northwest New Guinea area around 3,500 years ago. They gave up the rice cultivation they had brought with them from Taiwan, and raised breadfruit wherever they went in the Pacific (except Easter Island and New Zealand, which are too cold). Their ancient eastern Indonesian cousins spread the plant west and north through insular and coastal Southeast Asia. It has, in historical times, also been widely planted in tropical regions elsewhere.