It grows in the rainforest during the rainy season from approximately July to October.
While the berry is too sweet to have found use among the natives, parts of the plant are eaten. The sweetening principle is a polypeptide, soluble in water, but very large labile at high temperature.
The non-sucrose compound responsible for the sweet taste is classified as monellin, a sweet polypeptide. The sweetness of monellin is approximately 2500 times sweeter than sucrose in a weight basis.
It occurs in the pulp of the small fruit. There is no known use of this naturally occurring sweetener at present. It chemical structure has been identified as yet. It appears to be associated with the fruit’s protein fraction, but it is beloved to be other than proteinaceous.
Natural sweetener of serendipity berry
