Houghton

Store: Shulman Dragon Fruit Orchard • Moorpark, CA, US

The Houghton dragon fruit is a specific, self-fertile hybrid variety of red-fleshed dragon fruit known for its sweet, berry-like flavor and robust growth. 
Key Characteristics

• Fruit Appearance: The fruit is typically small to medium-sized, weighing a quarter to half a pound, and oval-shaped. It has red skin with small, deep green fins (scales).
• Flesh and Flavor: The inner flesh is a bright red-purple color with a semi-firm, sweet, and juicy texture. Reviewers often compare the taste to a sweet beet or a very sweet red grape, sometimes with a hint of floral or berry notes. It consistently has a high sugar content, with an average brix score around 18, which can increase as the plant matures.
• Plant Details:
• Growth: The plant is a vigorous grower with thick, olive-green, meaty stems.
• Flowers: It produces large, nocturnal, fragrant white flowers, over 15 inches across, that are among the first and last to bloom in a season.
• Fertility: The Houghton variety is self-fertile, meaning it can produce fruit without cross-pollination from another variety. Its abundant pollen is also considered "universal" and can be used to effectively cross-pollinate many other self-sterile dragon fruit varieties.
• Heritage: The Houghton variety was named after Arthur Duvernoix Houghton, a botanist who specialized in cacti. It is one of the parent plants used by hybridizer Paul Thomson to create the popular 'Sugar Dragon' (also known as 'Voodoo Child' or 8-S) variety, which is very similar to its Houghton parent.