Rambutan or Hairy Cherry

The fruit of the rambutan tree is hidden inside the "chom chom" or messy hair as the Vietnamese say. Rambut means hair in Malaysia. The small oval shaped fruit is hidden inside the red casing that protects its soft leechee-like fruit.  At the center of the rambutan is a seed.  These seeds are mildly poisonous if eaten raw.  The fruit is a round or oval drupe and it is juicy and delicious by itself or added to a salad. The trees themselves are either male or female and can grow to 50 or 60 feet.  Just grasp the fruit on either end and twist, the shell splits apart and the center is revealed.