Jackfruit is the world's largest cultivated fruit and delivers copious cultural benefits to humans.

The fruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) resembles its relative, the breadfruit ('ulu), but on steroids. In Bali, I saw a jackfruit at a roadside stand that weighed more than 60 pounds, and some individual jackfruit weights have been reported at more than 100 pounds.

The pulp of immature jackfruit can be cooked as a starchy food or pickled or canned in curry or brine. The aromatic and succulent ripe fruit is consumed fresh, dried or preserved, and can be reincarnated into delectable jelly, jam or chutney. Fresh, concentrated or powdered ripe pulp is also used as a flavoring for ice cream and beverages. Jackfruit liquor is produced by fermenting and distilling the fruit.

Boiling or roasting the nutritious seeds makes them edible and similar in taste to chestnuts. The seeds are also milled to a flourlike texture and added to bread dough.

Tender juvenile leaves are cooked and eaten as a vegetable. In India, leaves are woven together as plates and used as food wrappings. Young male flower spikes are pickled or grated and consumed with vinegar and salt. The latex can be chewed as gum.

All parts of the tree possess medicinal applications. The ash of jackfruit leaves incinerated with corn and coconut husks is used alone or combined with coconut oil to treat ulcers. The dried latex contains artostenone, modifiable to artosterone, a compound with androgenic activity (on male hormones). Incorporating the latex with vinegar promotes the healing of abscesses, snakebites and glandular swelling. The root is used for asthma and skin ailments, while the root extract is also given as a treatment for diarrhea and fever. Poultices are fashioned from tree bark. Heated leaves are wrapped on wounds.

Cattle, goats and other tiny ruminants are 'ono for the leaves. The "rags" (waste remaining from fruit pulp removal) are superb animal feed.

The wood is classified as a medium hardwood, a valued building material used for cabinet and furniture creation, and making musical instruments (craftsmen of Cebu province in the Philippines craft guitars and 'ukulele). Jackfruit wood is tenacious, resisting decay and termites. It cures readily, simulates mahogany in character and takes a gorgeous polish. As the wood matures, the color transforms from yellow-orange to red-brown. Excavated roots of old trees are prized for picture frames and carving. Inner tree bark can be woven into cordage or cloth. The bark contains 3.3 percent tannin. Boiling the bark with alum, sawdust or wood chips produces a dye that bestows the distinctive orange-red to the robes of Buddhist monks.

In India and Nepal, jackfruit flowers and fruit are offered to Lord Vishnu on the 11th day of Shravan, the holiest month of the year for Hindus.

Jackfruit was probably imported to Hawai'i from Jamaica in 1885. Cultivars of jackfruit in island soil include NS1, Honey Gold, Golden Nugget, Dang Rasimi and Black Gold. Locally, the fresh fruit is sold in Chinatown.

A tree drenched with gargantuan teardrops of jackfruit is a mesmerizing botanical spectacle, with bounty that has prospered humans for generations.