Can You Eat Those Seagrapes?

By Brittany Osburn
As you walk across some of the area boardwalks to the beach, you often go from dense plants to open sand and sea. Anyone who has visited one of our local beaches has probably noticed the variety of plants growing in the beach sand along the dunes. One plant that visitors will see is the seagrape with its big, rubbery looking round leaves. When in season it produces fruit that looks like grapes. And the question is, “Can you eat those seagrapes?”

The answer is “Yes.” Seagrapes do actually produce fruit that is edible!

In the summertime, seagrapes produce flowers and stalks that cross pollinate in order to produced their fruit. The grapes are usually found on the plant in late summer. These grapes can be eaten straight off of the plant, made into jam, fermented into wine, or even used to make cooking vinegar.

The bark and wood of the actual plant is strong enough to build things, and in places like Jamaica people use the sap to dye and tan leather!

They are only found in tropical climates where there is no chance of a frost occurring, which would kill the plant.

Seagrapes are an important part of the beach ecosystem and help stabilize the fragile sand dunes against wind and water erosion. They also block out artificial light that comes from buildings and streets, helping keep baby sea turtles moving in the right direction and towards the water after they hatch!

Here on the space coast you can find them beachside in lawns and businesses, sometimes they are trimmed ornamentally for decoration. The seagrape is a very important part of the coastline here and is very a versatile plant!