Wild hill fruit rosko sells dearer than apples in Rangamati

In early April 2026, rosko, a wild fruit of the Chittagong Hill Tracts that is also called blood fruit, was selling in the markets of Rangamati town for Tk 400 to 500 a kilogram, more than imported apples, which cost Tk 300 to 350 a kilogram, Jagonews24 reported from Rangamati on 4 April 2026. The red, sweet-sour fruit had begun reaching the markets in mid-March. It grows wild on climbing vines in the forests of Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban, and many hill households had begun sowing its seeds beside their homes.

Md Moniruzzaman, additional director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Rangamati, told the paper that no research had yet been done on the fruit, that it was seen in many parts of the three hill districts and sold well, and that the climate of the hills suited it, so farmers could profit from growing it commercially.

According to the report, rosko grows in bunches on vines in the hill forests and turns deep red or vermilion when ripe. It is called "rosko" in the Chakma language, "taithak" in Tripura and "loskor" among the Marma, and because of the dark red juice inside it is also known as "roktofol" or "roktogota", blood fruit. Prothom Alo, in a report from Rangamati on 10 June 2024, gave the same Chakma and Tripura names and described the fruit as hanging in grape-like clusters, green when raw and bright red when ripe, with a sour-sweet taste.

Botanists know the plant as Haematocarpus validus (Miers) Bakh.f. ex Forman. A 2018 paper in the Indian journal Current Science, by researchers of the ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute in Port Blair and colleagues in Tripura, lists the names it goes by across the region: Khoon Phal and Rakta Phal in Hindi, Roktogula and Lalgola in Bengali, Rosco in Chakma, Ranguichi in Marma and Thaichak in Kokborok, the language of the Tripura people. Two Bangladeshi studies use local names in their titles: a 2014 paper calls the fruit "Lalgula", "a promising endemic ethnic fruit of Bangladesh", and a 2015 paper calls it "Roktogota", "an important medicinal fruit plant of hilly areas of Bangladesh".

The species belongs to the Menispermaceae, the moonseed family, whose plants are rich in alkaloids, according to a review published in the journal Discover Plants in October 2025 by researchers of North-Eastern Hill University in Meghalaya, India. The review says the genus Haematocarpus has two species and that H. validus is reported mainly from Bangladesh, India, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. In India it grows mostly in the tropical deciduous and evergreen forests of the north-eastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura, and it is also reported from West Bengal and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Current Science paper adds that, apart from India, the species has been reported from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore, Pakistan and Thailand.

The Current Science paper describes blood fruit as a woody climber that grows by taking support of large trees. Its leaves are elliptic, ovate-elliptic or obovate-elliptic; leaves the researchers measured in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands averaged 12.50 cm long and 5.61 cm wide, on stalks 1.6 to 2.5 cm long. The flowers are borne in panicles up to 40 cm long, on the main trunk of the vine or in the leaf axils. They are light greenish to yellowish, so flowers high in the branches are hard to tell apart from the leaves of the supporting tree. The Discover Plants review adds that the species is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants, and that its flowers grow directly from the older stems.

The fruits, botanically drupes, are borne in clusters and do not ripen together: in one bunch some fruits are still green while others have turned red. Their colour changes from green to reddish and finally to dark red or purple. The skin is generally thick and is not eaten; it is the blood-red pulp around the seed that gives the plant its English name. Pulp of fruit from the Andaman Islands had a total soluble solids content of 18 to 19 degrees Brix, a measure of sweetness.

The 2025 review brings together fruit measurements from earlier studies. Fruit from the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh averaged about 28 g, 4 to 5 cm long and 2 to 2.5 cm wide, while fruit measured in Indian states weighed about 15 to 21 g. In the Bangladeshi fruit the peel made up about 64 per cent of the weight, the pulp about 22 per cent and the seed about 14 per cent. The reviewers wrote that the larger size and higher pulp share of fruit from the Chittagong Hills make them promising candidates for selecting better plants to grow.

In the wild the vine is found mainly in undisturbed, moist, evergreen forest patches, at elevations of up to 1,000 metres or more, the review says, climbing over large trees such as banyan, jackfruit and Baccaurea species. The Current Science paper notes that the species is known to tolerate varied conditions, including a dry climate and highly acidic soils.

Rosko grows naturally in deep forests and on hill slopes across the Chittagong Hill Tracts, including Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban, the Jagonews24 report said. It is mainly available from March to May. The ripe fruit is eaten fresh, and many people also make it into a mash (bhorta) or jam. In India, the Current Science paper gives the main ripening season in the Andaman Islands and Tripura as April to June, and the Discover Plants review says that in north-east India flowering starts in October and the fruit is sold in local markets from March to June.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts are the only extensive hill area of Bangladesh, about 13,184 square kilometres in the south-east of the country, roughly one-tenth of its total area, according to Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia. The area borders Myanmar to the south-east, the Indian states of Tripura to the north and Mizoram to the east, and Chittagong district to the west, and in the early 1980s it was divided into the three districts of Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban.

Banglapedia describes a tropical monsoon climate: a dry, cool season from November to March, a very hot and sunny pre-monsoon season in April and May, and a warm, wet monsoon from June to October, with mean annual rainfall of nearly 2,540 mm in the north and east and 2,540 to 3,810 mm in the south and west. The hill soils are mainly yellowish-brown to reddish-brown loams and are very strongly acidic, and the hills, rivers and cliffs are covered with dense bamboo brakes, tall trees and creeper jungles. The fruit's season, from March to May, thus spans the end of the dry season and the hot pre-monsoon months.

Rangamati district covers 6,116.11 square kilometres and has ten upazilas, according to Banglapedia, which gives its population at the 2011 census as 595,979. It is home to Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, Tripura and several other communities, and Kaptai Lake is its best-known water body. Banglapedia gives agriculture as the main source of income for 59.08 per cent of the district's people. A survey of tribal medicinal plants published in the Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy in 2007 says that at least 12 ethnic communities live in the Hill Tracts, of which the Chakma are the largest, concentrated in Rangamati and part of Khagrachhari, followed by the Marma, who are spread almost evenly across the three districts, while the Tripura are concentrated in Khagrachhari.

Apart from the weekly market days of Wednesday and Saturday, the fruit was on sale at Banarupa, Rajbari, Kalyanpur, College Gate and Tabalchhari markets in Rangamati town, the report said. Sellers said demand was high and that it sold for Tk 200 to 500 a kilogram depending on size.

Subal Chakma, a seller at Banarupa market, told the paper that the inside of the fruit is full of juice as red as blood and that people eat it because they believe it cures anaemia. "It used to grow plentifully in the hill forests, and back then it did not fetch much," he said. "Now the vines are rarely seen and the price is much higher. At first I sold it at Tk 500 a kg. Now I am selling it at Tk 400."

The fruit had commanded such prices before. In June 2024 Prothom Alo reported that demand for rosko had risen while supply did not keep up, because all of it was collected from natural forests. A trader in Rangamati told that paper he had sold it at Tk 600 a kilogram at the start of that season and at Tk 400 later in the season. Md Moniruzzaman, then a deputy director of the DAE, told Prothom Alo that the fruit grew naturally only in the hill areas, that research was needed before commercial cultivation, and that marketing arrangements were essential; he added that it could be used for food colouring and in making paint.

Across the border the fruit is sold in local markets too. The Current Science paper records a price of about 100 to 150 Indian rupees a kilogram in Middle Andaman markets in 2017, and the 2025 review says that in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya a small bunch of 200 to 500 g sold for 100 rupees. Village elders and herbal healers there told the reviewers that the fruit had once been plentiful and cheap.

The report said the fruit was gaining a following beyond the hills, in Dhaka, Chattogram and other lowland areas, and that many hill households were sowing its seeds beside their homes with an eye to selling the crop.

Subrata Bikash Chakma of Krishnamachhara in Ghilachhari union, Naniarchar upazila, has grown the vine beside his house. "This vine is more than 18 years old," he told the paper. "It bore fruit six to seven years after I planted it from seed. So far I have sold more than Tk 50,000 worth of fruit." Naniarchar, north of Rangamati town, covers 393.67 square kilometres, and Kaptai Lake occupies about one-fifth of it, according to Banglapedia.

Lakshmi Kumar Chakma of Mountola in Kutukchhari union, Rangamati Sadar upazila, has one rosko vine, which had been bearing fruit for 15 years. That year he hoped to sell Tk 70,000 worth of rosko, and he had planted several more vines. Explaining that the vine grows on big trees in natural forest, he said: "To grow this fruit you need big, long-lived trees. The vine usually grows well on mango trees. It lives for years and years without harming the big tree."

Research from India gives some guidance on raising the plant. In the Current Science study, seeds from ripe Andaman fruit were soaked before sowing in coir pith. No seed germinated in any treatment during the first 45 days, which the authors read as a sign of seed dormancy; by 115 days about 75 per cent of seeds soaked only in water had germinated, and the best treatment reached 85.4 per cent. The seedlings were moved into polythene bags filled with soil and farmyard manure in equal parts and staked with wooden sticks until they were planted out. The 2025 review says a plant grown from seed takes around seven years to mature and flower, while one grown from a cutting takes around four years.

The same review describes how, in the Garo Hills, the vine grows vigorously on native trees such as jackfruit, burmese grape (Baccaurea ramiflora), fig species, Schima wallichii, sal and haritaki (Terminalia chebula), and on areca nut palms, and suggests combining it with native trees and commercial crops in agroforestry. It also lists the obstacles: a long wait before the first crop, seed dormancy, separate male and female plants that depend on pollinators, little research on propagation by cuttings or grafting, and limited awareness among farmers. Farmers in Bangladesh who want to plant the vine can get advice from their upazila agriculture office.

The DAE official told Jagonews24 that, besides fibre, the fruit contains vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin B6. Laboratory studies of the fruit, mostly carried out in India, give figures for several of its constituents.

A study by the ICAR Research Complex for the North Eastern Hill Region at Umiam, Meghalaya, published in Frontiers in Nutrition in March 2023, analysed nine wild fruits collected in Meghalaya in 2019 and 2020. Blood fruit had the highest juice content of the nine (43.72 per cent) and the highest total soluble solids (18.27 per cent), total sugar (11.27 per cent), moisture (88.39 per cent), vitamin C, measured as ascorbic acid (63.82 mg per 100 g of pulp), total carotenoids (18.47 mg per 100 g) and total anthocyanin pigment (354.04 mg per 100 g). The authors compared its vitamin C with figures for commercial fruits such as apple (7.94 mg per 100 g) and orange (10.13 mg per 100 g), while noting that guava and amla are far richer sources.

A 2021 study in the Journal of Food Science and Technology found the fruit rich in iron, with 57.29 mg per 100 g of dry weight, and with a very high ratio of potassium to sodium (280.65). It identified 54 compounds in the fruit, among which quinic acid was the main one, measured at 292.95 mg per 100 g of dry weight. A 2019 study in the same journal by a team including the Port Blair researchers found the pulp acidic, with a pH of 3.01 and a sweetness of 17 degrees Brix, and fully ripe pulp contained 8.76 mg of anthocyanins per gram, with pelargonidin the main pigment; the authors saw the fruit as a possible natural colourant for the food and dye industries.

The DAE official also told the paper that hill people use the vine as a medicine for jaundice and itching, and that eating the fruit cures anaemia, a belief the Banarupa seller shared. The research literature records the same traditional uses. The Current Science paper says fruits and seeds are used for treating anaemia, roots for curing itching and tender shoots for jaundice in traditional medicine, and that Nicobarese communities use a leaf decoction for body ache. The 2025 review says the Chakma and Marma communities of the Chittagong Hills use the tender shoots to cure jaundice and the roots for itching, add the fruit to rice cakes and puddings, and dry the ripe fruit to store it for later use.

The studies cited here measured what the fruit contains; none of them tested in people whether eating it treats anaemia or any other illness. Iron deficiency anaemia is often caused by blood loss or pregnancy, according to the UK National Health Service (NHS). Its guidance, reviewed in January 2024, is to see a doctor, who will usually order a full blood count; if the count is low, iron tablets are normally prescribed for about six months. The NHS lists dark-green leafy vegetables, fortified cereals and bread, meat, dried fruit and pulses as iron-rich foods, and advises cutting down on tea, coffee, milk and dairy foods, which can make it harder for the body to absorb iron. Anyone with signs of anaemia, jaundice or a persistent skin complaint should see a doctor rather than rely on a fruit or a vine.

The Banarupa seller's remark that the vines are now rarely seen echoes the scientific literature. The Current Science paper says that in Bangladesh the species had been assessed as vulnerable and a later report had categorised it as highly threatened; both reports blamed growing human activity and climatic factors and called for urgent conservation. In Meghalaya, the paper adds, it had been categorised as critically endangered. The 2025 review notes that blood fruit is not listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, but that many local and regional studies describe it as endangered, vulnerable or threatened, and that a 2015 Bangladeshi study found it highly threatened and in need of attention for conservation.

The review traces the decline in north-east India to habitat destruction and deforestation, unsustainable harvesting, shifting cultivation, commercial areca nut monocropping, climate change and limited awareness. Because almost all fruit is still gathered from the wild, the Current Science authors argued that bringing it into homestead gardens could ease the pressure on wild plants while giving local people a source of nutrition.

The fruit remains part of the diet of hill communities in Bangladesh. A study of the Rowangchhari upazila of Bandarban, published in the Bangladesh Journal of Agriculture in July 2024 by researchers from the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute, Jahangirnagar University and the University of Chittagong, recorded 35 wild edible fruits from 23 families used by the local communities, and named Haematocarpus validus among the fruits most commonly used there.

Photo: Adam Jones / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Prothom Alo, Current Science (ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, 2018), Discover Plants (North-Eastern Hill University, 2025), Frontiers in Nutrition (ICAR Research Complex for the North Eastern Hill Region, 2023), Journal of Food Science and Technology (2019 and 2021), Bangladesh Journal of Agriculture (2024), Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy (2007), Banglapedia, UK National Health Service