Seedy fruits

Wrinkled purple skin gives away nothing. Crack one open and you get the most aromatic juice in the tropics — bright, tart, perfumed, with crunchy black seeds suspended in golden jelly. One spoon eaten straight, or drizzle the pulp over yogurt, ice cream, or a pavlova that needs the lift.

An orange passion fruit on the outside, a gentler animal on the inside. The brittle shell cracks like an egg to reveal grey-translucent jelly around crunchy black seeds — sweet, honeyed, floral, with almost none of the tartness of its cousins. The dessert passion fruit.

The deep-magenta cultivar of prickly pear. Same desert fruit, bigger pigment, sweeter finish. Watermelon meets pomegranate with crunchy edible seeds and a flesh that stains everything it touches.

The yellow cultivar of prickly pear — milder, paler, less staining than the red. Watermelon meets honeydew with edible seeds. The gateway prickly pear if you're new to the family.