It has a lot of different names. The species name is Plinia cauliflora (or Myrciaria cauliflora or Eugenia cauliflora)
It's an interesting plant and rather picky about its conditions - it will grow slowly and happily for years, doesn't really care about the soil type, but won't fruit unless it's consistently watered. But it seems hard to kill outright!
Because it grows so slowly, it makes a good container plant. It also looks rather lovely.
The trees can get pretty huge in their native Brazil, and apparently there are a lot of different varieties there. We only really get one or two in New Zealand (and only one that I was actually able to find), and they generally only grow to about 3-5m here (because it's colder and less humid. It should stay even smaller in a pot - the idea is that you just grow it up then plant it out later).
They fruit and flower directly on the trunk itself, large purplish grapelike fruit that look really impressive. They're very prolific; you get a lot of fruit off each one and they keep flowering and fruiting up to three times a year (a month and a half between flower and fruit) in the NZ climate. Four times if you're somewhere warmer. The fruit is good to just eat, or to make wine or jam out of.
I bought two seedlings off TradeMe - the only place they were for sale in New Zealand (a couple of specialised nurseries mention them, but don't really sell to the public). It seems like it's impossible to buy them any larger!
They're much easier to buy in the USA though, by the looks of things: Jabuticaba plants and seeds on Amazon
I figured that they'll be low maintenance plants that look nice around the deck, and maybe in five years I can try getting them to fruit. (...And by "nice around the deck" I meant that I may eventually repot them into nicer pots. The plants are really lovely in person, and I say this as someone who generally doesn't care for so called ornamentals).
Because I bought two, I can experiment with the best pot type. They like it moist, so one is in a normal plastic pot, but I also think that air pruning pots seem to be a good idea, so the other is in a DIY pot (wire basket and weed mat lining).
Both are sitting in a plastic bowl to catch the water - the basket pot absorbs it back in a lot more readily! (Same rainwater, same amount of time, half the amount of water in the bowl).
The reason the water is so dark is because of all the soil that washed out with the rain! (Now there's incentive to put a bowl under pots).
More info:
Also a quick update on two of the natives:
The Red Kaka Beak is growing really well.
This little manuka Huia is somewhat smothered, but absolutely covered in flowers.
In my defence, that ground was bare earth in summer - the winter rains (and me disturbing it) have been a massive boon for the weeds!
How’s your jaboticaba going?
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