Dear Editor,
Despite my many years of residence in Guyana, I have never been able to determine whether the name of the tree and the delicious fruit which it bears is ‘downs’, ‘dungs’ or ‘dunks’! Internet searches are of no particular help because they produce almost equal instances of all three words.
Through your pages, or other erudite resources, could you please let me know which is the original local name and how it acquired it? It would also be interesting to learn its botanical name and what it is called in other countries [I have seen some beautiful varieties of this fruit in East Africa].
Thank you in anticipation of this – and for your newspaper’s noble endeavours singlehandedly to maintain a free and responsible press in Guyana today. Yours is indeed the only news journal on which we expatriates can depend for unbiased, unsensationalized reportage today.
Yours faithfully,
Gavin M Wilson
Editor’s note
We asked our gardening correspondent, Mr John Warrington, to advise and received the following note:
“I think that the plant referred to is ‘Ziziphus mauritiana’ once known as Ziziphus jujuba. It is known throughout the West Indies although not so much in Trinidad. It is described as having dark green leaves, their underside covered with grayish hairs and about two and a half inches long with the same width. The leaves have quite distinct parallel veins.
The flowers are borne in clusters in the leaf axils. The fruit is about the size, shape and colour of the olive and an acidic taste, which can be eaten fresh or cooked and was once used as a cough cure. Golfers may be interested to learn it was a source of shellac.
Originally from China and India. Common name is ‘Dunk, or Jujube.”
