fruit

Fruit and Berries

Fruit appears on stamps showing popular food products. The term applies to any sweet tasting plant parts associated with seeds, with berries and orchard products as prime examples. Also some items we consider to be vegetables are in this category, such as tomatoes and peas.

Fruit

Australia issued a set of 4 stamps showing various foods in 1987. The design of each makes it look like scenery, with “trees” and “cliffs”. You might say it is domestic plants as art.

#1015 - 36¢ - melons & grapes
#1016 – 65¢ – tropical crops
#1017 – 90¢ – pears, apples & oranges
#1018 - $1.00 – berries, peaches

From Bulgaria, 4 stamps. I know, two of them are usually considered vegetables, but they are really fruit, bearing seeds. These are from different classes of domestic plants, from field crops to orchard trees.

#931, 16 ct in purple, showing apples.
#1022, 16 ct value in green, showing peppers.
#1072, in red; original value was 44 st, but there is an overprint of 45ct. This one has tomatoes.
#1439, 2 ct in olive colour, with grapes.

And from 4 other countries:

Argentina #447 – 2 pesos, “Fruticultura” across the bottom, and a cornucopia with many fruits of domestic plants spilling out: watermelon, grapefruit, pear, apple, grapes, peach, mango
Costa Rica #C800 – 2.10 colons Air Mail from 1980, with a bunch of bananas, genus Musa. Banana plants also are used for fibers to weave kimonos in Japan, and rugs in Nepal. The yellow ones shown are sweet, but others are more starchy and cooked, peel and all.

Mangoes, Mangifera indica, are popular with many varieties that vary in colour, texture and flavour. It is grown in tropical areas of the world.

India #416 – 50r in blue-green, mangoes in a tree; no Latin name, but the word Mangoes at bottom.
Cameroon #465 - from 1967, 6F face shows the inside of one mango. Latin name is at the bottom

The Malagasy Republic (also known as Madagascar) produced the following stamps with fruit.

#1064 – Letchi – (or Lychee to us) Litchi chinensis is a tropical fruit tree, primarily found in China, India, Madagascar, southern Asia, the Philippines and a few other areas. It is a fragranced fruit with a sweet taste, eaten in many different dessert dishes.
#1065 – Oranges - Citrus sinensis is called “sweet orange”; it is actually a type of berry because it has many seeds and are fleshy and soft. The genus Citrus includes grapefruits, lemons, limes, and oranges, all of which can interbreed for new varieties.
#1068 – Bananas – genus Musa as above from Costa Rica.

The continuous strip of 5 different fruits on self-adhesive stamps below is from Tonga.

#1054a Banana 10¢,
#1054b Coconut at 45¢
#1054c Pineapple at 60¢
#1054d Watermelon at 80¢
#1054e Passion Fruit at the $2.40 value.

Each stamp has a serpentine “perf” around the shape of the fruit, making each one part of a continuous background of leaves, the appropriate type behind each item. There are also perforations to separate each of the five stamps from the rest.

The following fruits are cultivated around the world in mostly tropical or sub-tropical areas. This is a strip of 5 self-adhesives, with selvedge, issued by the USA in 2008.

#4253 Pomegranate – grows on a small tree or shrub in central Asia & dry parts of equatorial areas
#4254 Star fruit – from a tropical tree
#4255 Kiwi – The kiwifruit (or kiwi) is the edible berry of a cultivar group of a woody vine
#4256 Papaya – grows on a large tree-like plant with clusters of fruit hanging directly on the trunk
#4257 Guava – tropical & sub-tropical shrub produce this crop, and the wood is used as smoke flavouring

Edible Berries

Edible wild berries of Canada are featured on seven definitive stamps issued on August 5, 1992, replacing the Canadian Mammals series of 1988. You might not think of them as domestic plants, but they are harvested commercially, and sometimes planted on farms.

The backgrounds of the designs have some indication of where the plants grow. Since only the popular name of each is shown on the stamps, in English and French, I have mentioned the scientific name with the description.

#1349 - Blueberries, 1¢ - Vaccinium spp (I am familiar only with V. angustifolium, the lowbush variety, but there are about 16 species) - Varying from blue to black, and from low to high-bush varieties, they can be grown commercially or harvested from the wild. Bears fill up on them to prepare for hibernation. Wild plants are found in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Ontario, while British Columbia is known for its large commercial acreage.

#1350 – Wild Strawberries, 2¢ - Fragaria spp - There are three known species of wild strawberries in Canada. The woodland (also called the Wild Strawberry) produces small berries. The field or "Virginia" plant is a hybrid created to produce larger berries, and is found wild too. The seaside or "Pacific" species is found only on the west coast.

#1351 – Black Crowberries, 3¢ - Empetrum nigrum - The black crowberry is found in northern parts of Canada, as a small bush. Its fruit was dried or frozen by the Inuit and Indians, and mixed with other berries. Tea could also be made from the twigs. The stamp has mountains and lake in background.

#1352 – Rose Hip, 5¢ - Rosa arkansana - (Prairie Rose or Wild Prairie Rose) Rose hips are produced by wild roses, and contain 25 times the vitamin C of an orange, with plenty of vitamin E as well. They can be used as a sugar substitute.

#1353 – Black Raspberries, 6¢ - Rubus leucodermis in western North America and R. occidentalis in the eastern part produce a dark purplish-black berry. Many find its flavour to be better than cultivated varieties. It is used in cooking and for preserves. The design has a lighthouse in the background.

#1354 – Kinnikinnick, 10¢ - Arctostaphylos alpina - The kinnikinnick, is a red berry of a low-growing shrub in circum-polar regions, and which is very high in carbohydrates. It is also known as Bearberry, since bears enjoy it as a food. Large rocks or ice are shown in the in background.

#1355 – Saskatoon Berry, 25¢ - Amelanchier alnifolia - Found as a shrub throughout Canada, the 15 species have various names. In the early West, Indians and settlers would prepare pemmican, a paste made from meat, fat and berries, as traveling food, or for the winter. They are ideal for jams, jellies, pies, muffins or pancakes. The design shows a river valley with grassland in background.

Block of 4 Blueberries #1349 as a sample of the sheet layout. Each denomination was issued in panes of 100 with a continuous design along the rows, but they were not continuous vertically. The top edge of the top row continues on into the sky in the selvedge; the bottom selvedge was a sold green block.

The USA put out a set of berries definitives in self-adhesive booklet style in 1999 and in self-adhesive coils in 2000. All have a face valued of 33¢. The booklet perfs are 11 ½ x11 ½.

Three of these berries are the same ones as found on Canadian stamps. For the fourth I have added information.

#3294 - blueberry
#3295 – raspberry - Rubus idaeus - Cultivated in gardens, it is easy to grow and has a tendency to spread unless pruned. I know it can be like a weed, popping up from suckers everywhere.
#3296 - strawberry
#3297 - black raspberry
#3305 - strawberry – coil – this shows the larger serpentine perfs (8 1/2 vertical) of the coil stamps

The set of 5 wild berries below, from the USSR, was issued in 1964. Each stamp shows the berry cluster and leaves of the plant, with a basket below.

#2975 – European Cranberries, 1k – Vaccinium oxycoccus, is an evergreen dwarf shrub growing in bogs, and are native to North America.. They were first used by the native peoples here, then imported to various countries of Europe
#2976 – Huckleberries, 3k – another Vaccinium sp, but this time deciduous; the fruit can range from red to blue and purple. Taste is similar to blueberries.
#2977 – Mountain Ass Berries, 4k - Sorbus aucuparia, found in temperate Europe & northwest Asia. The fruit is also called rowan berries, and are inedible when fresh, but are used to make jam or jelly, with a distinctive bitter flavour.
#2978 – Blackberries, 10k – Rubus spp is a perennial with flowers producing fruit on 2-year-old canes, which die after the fruiting season. Like raspberries, it is an aggregate fruit, popular for use in desserts, jams, and seedless jellies.
#2979 – Cranberries, 16k - Vaccinium microcarpum, or Small Cranberries, whose leaves are more triangular than V. oxycoccus.

The next set of 4 stamps, from Sweden, is the “Forest Larder”, for Domestic Letter rate of 5.5k (“Brev Inrikes”). They are self-adhesive with large serpentine perfs of 6.5 on 3 sides that leave the corners as straight cuts; they are in 2 pairs with the design continuous from one to the other in a pair. These were issued in a booklet of 6 stamps, 2 of the a-b pair and one of the c-d pair.
Although these are shown in a woodland setting, I include them here because some of these berries are managed by people for increased crop production.

#2491a – mushroom, lingonberries
#2491b – wild strawberries, basket of blueberries, with a butterfly and a red ‘string’ of what seems to be berries (not identified)
#2491c – juniper berries & basket of mushrooms
#2491d – cloud berries & cranberries

I bet you noticed the mushrooms. Technically, mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of that organism, but with spores instead of seeds.

Fruit on stamp sets

Three definitives from Sweden:

#1995 Gooseberries, Ribes uva-crispa, an edible berry found wild as well as grown domestically in much of Europe and Asia.
#1996 European Pear, Pyrus communis, a popular fruit, and the species from which most orchard varieties got their start. These 2 are a booklet pair.
#2004 Wild Cherries, Prunus avium, also called the Sweet Cherry, from which most cultivars for orchards come. This one is a coil stamp.

Here is a set of 6 from Austria.

First trio:

#778 Strawberries
#779 Grapes#780 Apple

The second trio:

#781 Blackberries
#782 Apricots
#783 Cherries

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