Horror corner

PICA

I recall when we first found the grove. The trees glowed, illuminated by late sunlight coming in shafts down into the valley, the thick smell of decaying fruit rising up toward us, sweet and sour and wonderful.

I was part of a six-person research team looking into water quality fluctuations in the Sierra valley system, following watercourses and comparing their biodiversity. In pursuit of one specific stream, we’d squeezed through a narrow crevice canyon that eventually opened up into a verdant, enclosed ecosystem rich with plants and animals previously unknown to science. That sort of thing isn’t unheard of in the region – the Andean mountains are full of such tiny pockets of life, totally cut off from each other by high mountain walls, creating Galapagos-like isolation.

But the trees – those really were the discovery of a lifetime, for any botanist or explorer – and I was both. The local natives (Puruhá) called them ‘Witch Berries’, or something like that, according to our guide. I speak very little Quichua, so I had to trust his translation. It’s not an unfitting name, though – they were bewitching. Endemic to just one valley in Ecuador, which was later made into a protected reserve, the small trees were not only beautiful, with arching, pendulous boughs and long, distinctive leaves; green above and pink below, but they also produced flowers and fruit in amazing quantity.

Walking into the grove, the berries were everywhere, emitting a heavenly scent, and we could not resist sampling, even knowing we risked poisoning. Taking some back to camp, they were run through our field toxicity test without any problems, and after we’d gone several days without any ill effects, we went back to the grove and picked hands-full of the fragrant fruit. Orange-pink, grape-sized oblong berries with a thin, fig-like skin, and a ripe mango texture. And the flavor – like burnt brown sugar and melted butter drizzled on perfect strawberries. They also dried easily, and held up unrefrigerated for nearly a week before spoiling. Almost immediately, talk of cultivation and marketing overtook our discussions, we foresaw ‘witchberries’ being the next big thing in supermarkets all across the world – and our visions soon danced with the money to be made!

The Puruhá didn’t seem too happy about us taking branch samples or eating from the trees – no doubt we were offending their religion and angering their Gods somehow – they had some sort of taboo about eating the fruits raw, which we didn’t understand, and dismissed as superstition. They used the berries for various medicinal and ceremonial purposes, cooking, drying, and grinding the fruit into a fine powder. It was easy to categorize their reverence as being similar to other cultures’ superstitions about pomegranates, apples, or honey.

So we took the cuttings back to our greenhouses in Kent, only to be pleasantly surprised by how readily they rooted and grew, thriving in warm, humid shade. Inside of five years, they started flowering, and we arranged an industry party to celebrate and taste the first crop grown in the UK. I lost track of how many people shook my hand, congratulated me and my teammates, and gushed positively about our find.

Oh but of course, we couldn’t say we -discovered- the plant, the indigenous people of the region knew about them long before us, and we had already made plans to send a small portion of the profits from our venture to the Puruhá, to improve their lives and to protect the tiny valley the trees came from.

The tasting party went off without a hitch, and we got a plethora of preliminary offers, not only from within the UK, but Europe and the USA as well. Of course, the fruit still needed FSA approval, but since the trees produced year-round with sufficient fertilizer, we could start shipping as soon as we were certified. Since our own labs had already investigated them pretty thoroughly, we knew it wouldn’t be a long process. With luck, we’d be able to get the next crop out by December, just in time for the big rush on tropical fruit for the holiday season. And when the certificates arrived, I brought in some champagne for us all.