Dragon Fruit Varieties

1. Red Varieties – Fruits have been used to combat anemia

a) Hylocereus undatus:

- Climbing cactus with large, scented, night blooming flowers

- Fruit weighs 1 kg or more with light melon-like taste

- Fruit has bright red skin, with translucent white flesh and tiny black seeds

- With triangular cross-section of its stem and minimal spines

These are perhaps the most common variety of the three varieties of dragon fruit cactus and are slightly to significantly less sweet than the pink or red fleshed pitaya fruit.

b) Hylocereus polyrhizus

- Fruit weighs up to 1 kg

- With red skin, dark-red flesh which contains small black seeds

- Stems have more spines

Of the two pink skinned varieties of pitahaya, the sweeter. Yielding fruits larger than those of the yellow skinned dragon fruit (with fruits up to more than 2 lbs in weight).

2. Yellow Variety

-  Selenicereus megalanthus

- Smaller fruit with yellow skin and clear to white flesh containing edible black seeds

- Sweeter than red varieties

- Contains the heart tonic captine

Generally the sweetest of the three varieties of pitaya, and with smaller sized fruits.

Illustration for classification, defects and packaging:

Illustration for selection standard: