Sea Grapes seemingly grow everywhere in South Florida. Native to South Florida and the Caribbean, this tree will grow in sun to semi-shade, is very drought once established, grows on the Oceanfront, shrugging off salty winds and hurricane, and provides food for wildlife. They can be pruned into privacy screens or trained into multi-stem trees. The maintenance is a Sisyphean task if you dream of a rectangular privacy screen. Sea Grape is evergreen and it’s big, shiny green leaves with pinky red veins provide year-round tropical ambiance.
Sea Grape’s botanical name is Coccoloba uvifera. The fruit, borne like grapes will eventually turn brown and drop to the ground. Grateful creatures devour the fruit, including my greyhounds – just one of the greyhounds, it took me a long time to figure out what he was crunching on while rooting around in the grass. A true Floridian hound, I suppose.
Florida natives (the human kind) eat the grapes when ripe, and make jelly and wine from them. My opinion, like many things, you have to grow up eating them to enjoy them. Kind of like being a Southerner and eating grits. They taste a bit like a fig, with a huge pit and are too labor intensive to make me want to eat them – and the birds usually beat me to them anyway.
The Shrub Queen 
I saved some sea grape leaves decades ago. Still have them.
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I have plenty if you need some more.
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That is a really interesting plant.
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Thanks, I think so, too.
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I’ve never seen this before, love the leaves!
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I like the leaves,too. Thanks.
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This to me is the quintessential Florida plant. Beaches and sea grapes!
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South Florida.. you got it.
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The Flying Nun made wine with them, and tried to sell it for a fundraiser. I sort of wondered what they were, and had never seen one.
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You sure it wasn’t a component of Blue Nun – not sure you are old enough for that joke?
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That is a joke? I know nothing about it.
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Blue Nun was a popular sweet wine in the 70s I think, my mother used to drink it.
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Now that you mention it that way, I remember the commercials for it. I do not know much about wine. There were wineries here (in the few spots that were not orchards) a long time ago so I grew up disliking the rotten aroma of it.
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