Fruits That Start With E: All 19 Common and Rare Varieties

Fruits that start with E run from the everyday to the genuinely obscure. The Eureka lemon in your fruit bowl, the Envy apple in your lunchbox and the European pear in a tin of halves all qualify — and so do Bornean entawak, Australian emu apple and South African sourfig. This guide covers 19 fruits beginning with E, with the botanical name, where each one grows, what it tastes like and where you can realistically find it.

Two of them come with genuine safety caveats that most lists leave out. Those are flagged clearly below.

Every Fruit That Starts With E: The Complete List

Why Eggplant Is on a Fruit List

Botanically, a fruit is the mature ovary of a flowering plant, containing its seeds. That definition is indifferent to whether something tastes sweet. Eggplant develops from a flower and carries seeds throughout its flesh, which makes it a berry in strict botanical terms — the same category as a tomato or a grape.

Cooks use a different system entirely. In the kitchen, “fruit” means sweet and “vegetable” means savoury, and eggplant lands firmly on the savoury side. Neither definition is wrong; they answer different questions. This guide uses the botanical definition, which is why eggplant appears here, and it flags where the culinary reality differs.

Common Fruits That Start With E

These are the ones you can actually buy. If you are working through an alphabet game, a crossword or a school project, this is the section that will serve you.

1. Eureka Lemon

If you have bought a lemon in the last week, it was probably a Eureka. The variety traces back to a batch of seedlings grown in Los Angeles from seed of Italian origin, reportedly planted in 1858. Around 1877 the Los Angeles nurseryman Thomas A. Garey propagated and introduced it as “Garey’s Eureka,” and it became one of the dominant commercial lemons worldwide.

Eureka fruit is highly acidic with the bright, uncomplicated sourness most people picture when they think of lemon. The tree is nearly thornless and fruits almost year-round in mild climates, which is precisely why growers favour it. Its main rival, the Lisbon, is more cold-tolerant but thornier. For juice, zest, preserved lemons or a tart, the Eureka is the default.

2. Envy Apple

Envy is a trademark, not a variety name. The apple underneath is Scilate, bred by New Zealand’s HortResearch from a cross of Royal Gala and Braeburn, submitted for patent in 2008 and granted in 2009. That parentage shows: it inherits Gala’s sweetness and Braeburn’s density.

Its most marketable trait is that the cut flesh browns unusually slowly, which makes it a favourite for cheese boards, lunchboxes and salads where sliced apple has to sit for a while. The flavour is sweet with low acidity — pleasant rather than complex, and a poor choice if you want the sharp edge that a cooking apple brings.

3. Empire Apple

The Empire has an unusually well-documented origin. The seed was sown in 1945 by Lester C. Anderson, a Cornell University fruit nutritionist, from a McIntosh crossed with Red Delicious. The pomologist Roger Way later named it after New York, the Empire State.

It is the rare McIntosh descendant that does not go mealy. Where McIntosh softens quickly, Empire holds a dense, crisp texture and resists bruising well enough to survive being packed in a bag. The flavour is sweet-tart with the aromatic quality McIntosh is known for. It is a good all-purpose apple: fine raw, and it keeps its shape better than most in a pie.

4. Elstar Apple

Developed in the Netherlands at Elst during the 1950s by crossing Golden Delicious with Ingrid Marie, the Elstar remains a staple across Northern Europe while being nearly invisible in North American supermarkets.

It is more interesting than most modern dessert apples: honeyed and aromatic with a genuine tang behind the sweetness, and a soft, fine-grained flesh rather than a hard crunch. It cooks down readily, which makes it a strong choice for apple sauce and traditional Dutch appeltaart, though the softer texture means it will not hold cleanly in a tart where distinct slices matter.

5. European Pear

Pyrus communis covers most pears sold outside East Asia — Bartlett, Conference, Anjou, Comice are all cultivars of this one species. It is distinct from the Asian pear, Pyrus pyrifolia, which stays crisp and round like an apple.

European pears have a genuine quirk worth knowing: they are among the very few fruits that do not ripen well on the tree. Left to ripen in place, the flesh turns gritty and the core browns from the inside. Commercial growers pick them mature but firm and ripen them off the tree, which is why the pears you buy are often rock-hard. Leave them at room temperature and press gently near the stem — that is where they soften first.

6. Elderberry

Elderberries grow in broad, flat clusters on shrubs of the genus Sambucus, found across the Northern Hemisphere and in parts of Australia and South America. Ripe berries are deep purple to near-black, tart and slightly earthy, and they carry meaningful vitamin C and anthocyanins. They appear in syrups, cordials, jams and wine.

7. Eggplant

Solanum melongena is a nightshade, related to the tomato, potato and chilli. It is native to Asia, where more than 80% of world production still happens. The familiar glossy purple teardrop is only one form — eggplants also come slim and lavender, small and green, or white and egg-shaped, which is where the English name came from.

The spongy flesh is the point. It has little flavour of its own but absorbs oil, spice and sauce readily, which is why it anchors dishes as different as baba ganoush, moussaka, baingan bharta and Sichuan fish-fragrant eggplant. Modern cultivars are far less bitter than older ones, so the traditional advice to salt and drain eggplant before cooking is now mostly about texture rather than removing bitterness.

8. Evergreen Huckleberry

Vaccinium ovatum grows along the Pacific coast of North America from southern British Columbia down to southern California. Unlike most huckleberries it keeps its leaves through winter, which is where the name comes from, and the glossy foliage is cut commercially for florists.

The berries are small, dark purple and ripen late — often improving after the first frost, when they turn noticeably sweeter. The flavour sits between a blueberry and a mild blackberry, with a little more seed crunch and a deeper finish. They are excellent in pancakes, pies and preserves. You will not find them in a supermarket; they are foraged or bought at farmers’ markets in the Pacific Northwest.

Rare and Regional Fruits That Start With E

These are unlikely to turn up in a supermarket outside their home region, but several are staples where they grow.

9. Egg Fruit (Canistel)

Pouteria campechiana is an evergreen tree native to southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador, now grown across the tropics. The fruit is yellow-orange and often heart-shaped, and it earns its name from the flesh: dense, dry and crumbly, with a texture genuinely close to hard-boiled egg yolk.

That texture divides people. The flavour is sweet and custard-like, sometimes compared to sweet potato or pumpkin custard, but the low moisture makes it feel pasty eaten plain. It works far better blended — into milkshakes, ice cream, custards and flans, which is how it is most often used in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam. Let it soften fully before eating; underripe canistel is astringent.

10. Emblica (Indian Gooseberry / Amla)

Phyllanthus emblica is a deciduous tree of tropical Asia bearing round, pale-green fruit about plum-sized, with a translucent look and faint vertical ridges. Raw amla is startlingly sour and astringent — most people cannot eat one straight through.

It is one of the richest natural sources of vitamin C, with published figures ranging roughly from 190 to 720 mg per 100 g depending on cultivar and method. Worth noting: researchers have found that common colorimetric tests overestimate amla’s ascorbic acid, and that much of its antioxidant activity comes from hydrolysable tannins — emblicanins A and B — rather than vitamin C alone. Amla is central to Ayurvedic practice and is widely sold as powder, juice and supplements. Reviews describe antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, but these are largely laboratory and early-stage findings rather than established clinical treatments, and amla should not be treated as a therapy for any medical condition.

11. Elephant Apple

Dillenia indica grows wild across South and Southeast Asia. The fruit is roughly grapefruit-sized but far harder, sheathed in thick, woody sepals that usually need a heavy knife to open. The flesh inside is fibrous and intensely acidic — closer to an unripe green mango than to any apple.

Almost nobody eats it raw. In Assamese and Bengali kitchens it is a souring agent, simmered into chutneys, dal and fish curries much as tamarind is used elsewhere. The name refers to the animals that eat the fallen fruit whole; elephants, monkeys and deer are its main seed dispersers.

12. Etrog (Citron)

Citrus medica is one of the three ancestral citrus species — alongside pomelo and mandarin — from which most modern citrus descends. It is mostly rind. A citron is thick, fragrant pith with only a small amount of dry, acidic flesh, so it is almost never eaten fresh.

The etrog holds religious significance in Judaism as one of the Four Species used during Sukkot, where fruit is inspected closely for blemishes and unblemished specimens command high prices. Outside ritual use, citron peel is candied for panettone and fruitcake, and the fragrant zest is prized in Italian and Middle Eastern cooking.

13. Entawak

Artocarpus anisophyllus is a jackfruit relative native to Borneo and neighbouring parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. The fruit is round and covered in short, blunt spines, green when unripe and turning yellow-brown as it matures.

Inside are segments of soft orange pulp around large seeds, sweet and strongly aromatic in the way jackfruit and cempedak are. It is eaten fresh, and the seeds are roasted or boiled like chestnuts. Entawak is very much a local fruit — sold in Bornean markets, rarely exported, and with a short season.

14. Early Gold Mango

Early Gold is a mango cultivar (Mangifera indica) selected, as the name suggests, for ripening early in the season — often among the first mangoes available in Florida, well ahead of the main commercial crop.

The fruit is modest in size with golden-yellow skin blushed red, and the flesh is sweet with very little fibre, which makes it pleasant to eat by hand. It is grown mainly by specialist and dooryard growers rather than at commercial scale, so it is a farmers’-market fruit rather than a supermarket one.

15. Eastern Hawthorn

Hawthorns are thorny shrubs and small trees of the genus Crataegus in the rose family. The eastern May hawthorn, Crataegus aestivalis, is native to the southeastern United States and produces small red pomes — structurally miniature apples, which is exactly what they look and taste like.

The fruit is mildly sweet, a little mealy, and high in pectin, which makes it far better as jelly than eaten raw. Hawthorn has a long history in traditional herbal medicine, particularly for cardiovascular use. That history is genuine, but it is not a substitute for medical treatment, and hawthorn preparations can interact with heart medications — a point worth raising with a doctor rather than acting on alone.

16. Elands Sourfig

Sourfigs are succulent, ground-hugging plants of the genus Carpobrotus, native to the South African coast. The genus name is literal: from the Greek karpos (fruit) and brotos (edible).

The fruit is fleshy and sticky, with a salty-sour, slightly astringent taste that is unusual among fruits. It is traditionally eaten fresh or made into a distinctive tart preserve, and the leaf juice has long-standing use in South African folk medicine. Carpobrotus edulis has been planted widely for dune stabilisation elsewhere and has become an aggressive invasive species in California, the Mediterranean and Australia — so it should never be planted outside its native range.

17. Emu Apple

Owenia acidula is a small Australian tree found across inland Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, and more sparsely in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The fruit is purplish-red with paler speckles, roughly 2–4 cm across, with a large stone.

The pulp is sharply sour — the species name acidula is a direct reference — and it is a traditional Aboriginal bush food, used fresh or made into preserves and sauces. Some botanical sources report that the pulp may have intoxicating or hallucinogenic effects; that claim recurs in the literature but is not well characterised, and it should be treated as unverified rather than established.

18. Emu Berry

Grewia retusifolia is a small shrub widespread across northern and eastern Australia, known variously as emu berry, dysentery bush, turkey bush and dog’s balls. It produces small two-lobed fruit with a fibrous, acidic pulp around the seeds.

The berries are sweet and pleasant despite their size, and were valued by Aboriginal peoples as a bush food; the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt recorded that the fruit tasted very agreeable and could be boiled into a refreshing drink. Other parts of the plant have traditional medicinal uses, which the common name “dysentery bush” reflects.

19. Ephedra Berry

Ephedra is a genus of shrubby, jointed, almost leafless plants found across arid parts of Asia, the Americas and southern Europe. They are gymnosperms, not flowering plants, so their red fleshy structures are strictly seed cones rather than true fruits — though they look and function like berries, and the cones of several species have been eaten by people living where they grow.

Fruits Starting With E, Grouped by Type

The list makes more sense grouped than alphabetised, especially if you are looking for a substitute rather than a specific name.

• Apples (3): Envy, Empire, Elstar. All Malus domestica cultivars — Envy for slow browning, Empire for keeping, Elstar for cooking down.
• Citrus (2): Eureka lemon and etrog. Both Citrus, but opposite in purpose — one is grown for juice, the other almost entirely for peel and ritual.
• Berries and small fruit (4): Elderberry, evergreen huckleberry, emu berry, elands sourfig.
• Tropical and subtropical (5): Egg fruit, elephant apple, entawak, Early Gold mango, emblica.
• Pome fruit (2): European pear and eastern hawthorn — both in the rose family, and a hawthorn really is a miniature apple in structure.
• Botanical outliers (3): Eggplant (a berry sold as a vegetable), emu apple (a bush food), ephedra (a seed cone, not a true fruit at all).

Why So Few Fruits Begin With E

It is a fair question, because the shortage is real. Compare E with A, B, C or P and the difference is obvious — and the reason is mostly historical rather than botanical.

Most English fruit names arrived either from Latin and French (pear, peach, cherry, grape) or from the trade languages of the regions the fruit came from (banana, mango, papaya, durian). Very few words in either stream begin with E. Where an E name does exist in English it is usually descriptive rather than inherited — eggplant and egg fruit both describe shape or texture, and elephant apple describes what eats it.

That is why so much of this list is made up of two categories: modern cultivar names chosen by breeders and marketers (Envy, Empire, Elstar, Early Gold, Enterprise), and transliterations of non-English names (etrog from Hebrew, entawak from Malay/Iban, amla behind the Latin emblica). Genuinely old English fruit words starting with E are almost limited to elderberry.

Which Ones Are Actually Worth Seeking Out

If you want to try something on this list that you have not eaten before, the realistic order is:

• Easiest: Elstar or Empire apple — both are ordinary retail apples in the right region, and both are more interesting than the Gala default.
• Worth the trip: Amla, from any Indian grocer. Buy it fresh rather than as powder to understand what it actually is — then use it in a pickle or chutney, not raw.
• Seasonal luck: Evergreen huckleberry at a Pacific Northwest farmers’ market in late summer, ideally after a cold snap.
• Only where it grows: Entawak, emu apple and emu berry do not travel and are not exported in any meaningful volume.

Storing and Handling

European pears ripen off the tree, so buy them firm and leave them at room temperature until the neck yields to gentle pressure — then refrigerate to hold them. Apples last far longer cold; Empire in particular keeps for months in a fridge drawer. Amla freezes well whole, which is the usual way to keep it out of season. Canistel must be fully soft before it is worth eating — buy it firm and wait. Elderberries should be de-stemmed thoroughly and then cooked, never eaten raw.

Frequently Asked Questions

What fruits start with the letter E?

Nineteen are covered here: Eureka lemon, Envy apple, Empire apple, Elstar apple, European pear, elderberry, eggplant, evergreen huckleberry, egg fruit (canistel), emblica (amla), elephant apple, etrog, entawak, Early Gold mango, eastern hawthorn, elands sourfig, emu apple, emu berry and ephedra. The everyday ones are the lemon, the three apples and the pear.

Is eggplant really a fruit?

Botanically yes — it develops from a flower and contains seeds, which makes it a berry in the same technical sense as a tomato. In cooking it is treated as a vegetable because it is savoury. Both classifications are correct within their own system.

Can you eat elderberries raw?

No. Raw elderberries, and the leaves, stems, bark and roots, contain cyanogenic glycosides that release hydrogen cyanide when metabolised. Raw consumption has caused nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, and hospitalisation in some cases. Cooking breaks the compounds down — extension guidance points to heating at around 85 °C (185 °F) or above.

Which fruit starting with E has the most vitamin C?

Amla (Phyllanthus emblica), by a wide margin. Published values range from roughly 190 to 720 mg per 100 g depending on cultivar and analytical method — far above lemon or elderberry. One caveat from the research: standard colorimetric assays tend to overestimate amla’s ascorbic acid, and a substantial part of its measured antioxidant activity comes from hydrolysable tannins rather than vitamin C itself.

What is the most common fruit that starts with E?

The Eureka lemon, on volume. It is one of the dominant commercial lemon varieties worldwide, so most lemons sold in supermarkets are Eurekas even though the name rarely appears on the label.

Are any fruits beginning with E unsafe?

Two warrant real caution. Raw elderberries are toxic and must be cooked. Ephedra is the botanical source of ephedrine alkaloids; the FDA banned dietary supplements containing them in 2004 after reports of heart attack, stroke and death, and it should not be treated as food.

Sources

• Oregon State University Extension Service — Play it safe when preserving elderberries
• National Library of Medicine (PMC) — Cyanogenic Glycoside Analysis in American Elderberry
• US Food and Drug Administration — Final Rule Declaring Dietary Supplements Containing Ephedrine Alkaloids Adulterated
• NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — Ephedra
• Antioxidants (MDPI) — Functional and Nutraceutical Significance of Amla
• National Tropical Botanical Garden — Pouteria campechiana
• SANBI PlantZAfrica — Carpobrotus edulis
• Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection, UC Riverside — Eureka lemon

This article is for general information. It is not medical or nutritional advice, and nothing here should be used to diagnose or treat a health condition. Never eat a foraged plant unless you are certain of its identification.

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