Kaimana

'Kaimana' is the University of Hawaii's flagship lychee release and the best-documented improved cultivar in the American tropics. The original seedling - one of a batch raised from 'Hak Ip' - was grown at the Poamoho experimental farm on Oahu and first fruited in 1965 at ten years of age. It was formally named in 1982 to mark the 75th, or diamond, anniversary of the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station; kaimana is Hawaiian for diamond. It improves on its parent by delivering higher measured sugars and dropping the medicinal aftertaste some tasters find in 'Hak Ip'. It is now among Hawaii's leading cultivars and one of the major commercial varieties in Australia, but it crops erratically in Florida, which is why it is stocked there mainly as a collector tree by nurseries such as Pine Island.