Borojoa/Borojo/Borojoa patinoi

The Borojo fruit has been famous for centuries among the people along the Amazon River because of its health properties. It is a native of the rainforests of Colombia, Ecuador and Panama. Studies and analysis have shown borojo to have one of the highest levels of soluble B vitamins amongst fruit as well as one of the largest concentrations of phosphorous amongst fruits. In Colombia, the borojo fruit is used as an ingredient in a drink called “jugo de amor” or “love juice” and considered as an aphrodisiac. Outside soccer stadiums, you will commonly find stand selling this concoction to the men going home after the match. The borojo fruit grows in the rainforests of Colombia and is collected when the fruit matures and falls to the ground, no trees are ever cut down or destroyed, and the fruit is never plucked from the tree, as it is not edible until fully ripened. Borojo has a delicious, sweet-tart flavor – like a plum with hints of vanilla.

The Borojoa patinoi is a shrub of 3 to 5 meters in height. Straight stalk, decussate leaves, with well defined stipule, coriaceous. Dioica plant. Masculine flowers in chapters, short calyx, prismatic or conic, generally actinomorphous, sessile, pentamerous and some times tetramerous without an ovary or, if it exists, it is rudimentary or non functional. The feminine flowers are lonely and terminal with two pairs of bracteal stipules and six longer stigmas; inferior ovary, with umbilical calyx at the base, six cavities and many ovules, corolla with six to nine petals, lineal stamen, empty or sterile. The fruit is a carnose berry from 7 to 12 cm. in length, an even diameter, being pluri form and generally flat at the apex, green in color at the beginning and light brown at maturity; pulp constituted by mesocarp and the endocarp, with no apparent separation from the shell, weight between 90 and 640 g, with an average of 330 seeds per fruit.

The borojo fruit is harvested in rather primitive conditions. As this fruit grows in very rich soil, on river banks in the jungles of the province of Darien, it would be quite difficult to use other means but the horse back to harvest this rare fruit. Once harvested, these fruits are transported on boats on the rivers of Darien, to the Pacific, where they are loaded on a ship which then comes to Panama City. Natives use the pulp to prepare juice, compotes, marmalades, candies, wine or are eaten straight up as food supplement while journeying through the jungles. It has been used to heal injuries, treat various illnesses, and has shown good results in balancing the sugar in the blood, to control arterial hypertension, aide in menstrual discomfort for women as well as other medicinal purposes. In its natural habitat, the Borojo tree lives with 85% humidity in the air, and can be found in the wild and commercial plantations. This plant grows mainly in the zone of “Geographic Chocó”. Among other species of the genus Borojoa, only the so called “puruí from bajo Amazonas, (B. sorbilis y B. verticillata), are similar to chocoan borojo.
Article Source: EzineArticles