July gardening journal challenge ~ Achiote a plant that amazes me.

Hello everyone in the beehive garden! It gives me great pleasure to be able to greet you again and participate in the July Gardening Diary Challenge, this time I want to show you an achiote or onoto plant, its scientific name is Bixa orellana and it is grown in central and some tropical countries of South America.

I recently traveled to Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela and went to visit my husband's godfather, in his garden he has an achiote tree or onoto, as we call it, it was very loaded with seeds, which are the true treasure of these plants and also had many flowers. It is a plant that reaches 2 to 5 meters high, it has a rounded and not very extended crown, its leaves are heart-shaped at the base, smooth and green.

I approached the fruit and saw that it is an oval and fleshy capsule, which has two symmetrical beads, has some tips in the form of hairs, dark green or as in this case brown, containing the seeds that are coated with an oily, viscous and resinous material, nutmeg-scented, which are bright red and is called annatto, that is the substance that we must extract to paint the food, bodies and to use as an aphrodisiac. 😏

Annatto seeds are the treasure of this plant because they possess a reddish pigment formed by carotenoids such as: norbixin, bixin, phytoene and carotene, in addition to other flavonoid compounds and vitamins A, B and C. Its pigment is highly valued in the kitchen, as it has several culinary uses as a spice and condiment, as it is a natural colorant and flavoring, and also has medicinal powers, with a high antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and anticarcinogenic power.

The achiote plant is harvested when its seed is dry, it is shelled and sprinkled in a prepared soil, where the seedling is born and then you can transplant it wherever you want. The achiote plants begin to produce after 2 years from its sowing, at the beginning it gives many fruits, but later it is able to produce more than two kilos of seeds per year.

The flowers can be white or pink, with 5 petals, very beautiful and showy, which once fertilized, give the opportunity to produce a fruit, which are collected when they are dry and shelled, as it was someone else's yard, I was inhibited from touching the plant, but my husband's godfather gave me a container with onoto seeds, which I brought home.