23 Fruits That Start With D (With Photos!)

Here is a list of 23 fruits that start with D. Some are variants of familiar plums, dates, or apples, but others are pretty exotic. Have you heard of them all?

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We can think of half a dozen reasons to want a list of fruits that begin with D. If you are just preparing for trivia night or working on a school project, let these fruits that start with the letter D inspire you! And if you are looking for a vegetarian recipe featuring a D List fruit, here are a few you may like.

Dabai Fruit

Dabai Fruit are native to Borneo. They look like a large dark grape or perhaps a small oblong plum. They taste like neither, however, as they are not sweet thus they are more commonly used in savory recipes.

Dangle Berry

Dangle Berry is also known as the Blue Huckleberry owing to its dark blue color. Like other dark blue fruits (think blueberries) they are loaded with antioxidants. They are native to the Eastern United States and like blueberries are great in pies, jams, or eaten out of hand. They could easily be substituted into this Blueberry Galette.

Damson Plums

Damson Plums grow mostly in Europe where they are common in small orchards and outside homes. The smallish oval shaped plums are wonderful. I can attest to this first hand having lived in Rotterdam for five years. They are great eaten out of hand, but often used in preserves and famously by German bakers in all manner of pastries. We are rather fond of this Plum Cobbler Smoothie Recipe and hope you might try it.

Darling Plum

This plum variety is tropical and grows in Florida and some of the Caribbean Islands. They are said to taste somewhat like blueberries which we can see as there are similarities in both tastes. Want to try a healthy plum treat for the kidos? Give homemade fruit roll ups a try.

Darwin’s Barberries

Darwin’s Barberries are native to Argentina and Chile, but have been grown in the United States as well. They often grow wild, sometimes after being planted as a decorative plant, but their fruits are difficult to pick due to the spiky leaves. They are rather tart, but still often used in pies and jams.

Date Plums

Date Plums are from Southwest Asia and also Southeast Europe. These distinctly yellow plums have all the same culinary uses of other plums, and are regionally used in various traditional health aides to assist with digestive issues, hemorrhoids, asthma, and even lung infections. While we can’t support any of these claims, plums have a noteworthy nutrition profile.

Davidson’s Plums

Davidson’s Plums are native to Australia and look much like the European Damson plum. This being our list’s fourth plum variety, if you are ready to stop reading and start eating, try this Plum Smoothie Bowl.

Dates

Dates are a stone fruit, meaning they have a single seed surrounded by an outer fleshy fruit (like peaches, mangoes, and olives). They’re grown on date palm trees, so where you would usually envision coconuts, picture big bunches of hundreds of dates! They go way back. Like 50 million years back, according to fossils. Us humans quickly learned of their magic back in Mesopotamia, and the date has remained popular in that region (Iraq, Middle East, Northern Africa) ever since. Egypt is the largest producer of dates today, followed by just about every other Middle Eastern country. If you want to know even more about dates to include date nutritional data, check here.

Dead Man’s Finger

Dead Man’s Finger is native to China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, and Myanmar. It is a blue fruit typically 3-5 inches long with a sweet inner pulp. Its smooth skin gives the fruit its name as it feels rather like a cold finger.

Dekopon

Dekopon is a Japanese orange variety developed in 1972. Dekopon was originally the brand name that became associated with these sweet, large oranges recognizable by the large bump on their top. Like pretty much all oranges these are a heathy fruit option.

Desert Banana

Desert Banana are also known as bush bananas and are native to Australia. They look nothing like a traditional banana resembling a zucchini more than a banana. They grow in Australian deserts and are commonly eaten by the indigenous people.

Desert Fig

Desert Fig tree grows in the US Pacific Northwest despite the “desert” name. The fruit are pear shaped with a yellow-green color.

Desert Lime

Desert Lime is a small thorny shrub native to much of Australia where it is known as a bush food. It has traditionally been harvested from the wild where it is common, but some commercialization has begun. Like other limes, the Desert lime is a nutritious citrus

Desert Quandong

Desert Quandong or Native Peach is a “bush food” native to the deserts of Central and South Australia. It is quite popular as an exotic flavoring which has led to attempts to cultivate the plants. Like many bright red fruits, they are high in vitamin C. They are said to taste like peaches or apricots.

Dewberries

Dewberries are also called wild blackberries and are very similar to the blackberries you get at the grocery. They are just smaller and not as sweet. They are generally found wild (thus the name obviously) and can be used like blackberries. Try them in this No Pectin Berry Jam!

Dinosaur Eggs

Dinosaur Eggs is the nickname given to a fruit called Pluots. They are a hybrid of plum and apricot. The name comes from their mottled red or yellow skin which apparently someone believed is what dinosaur eggs looked like. They are quite sweet, so they are easily eaten out of hand or made into preserves.

Discovery Apple

Discovery Apple is a lesser known crisp sweet apple variety that first appeared in the United Kingdom in the 1940s. There may be as many as 30,000 apple varieties worldwide today, and 2,500 of these are grown in the United States. Apples have been grown and eaten since the Roman Era and quite possibly before that. If you want more information on just a few of the most popular American apples check out our apples variety guide.

Dodder Laurel

Dodder Laurel grow on a parasitic vine in Australia. The small (half inch) green fruit and picked from the wild plants and eaten out of hand.

Double Coconut

Double Coconut is also known as the sea coconut and are only found on the islands of Praslin and Curieuse in the Indian Ocean. Double coconut can take 5-10 years to mature and ripen, and the pulp is generally not eaten but the shells are used to make platters and water vessels.

Dracontomelon

Dracontomelon grow in Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. Regionally they are used in drinks and as a souring agent. In Vietnam they are candied into a popular kids treat.

Dragon Fruit

Dragon Fruit are native to southern Mexico and Central America, but it is now grown worldwide. The name, obviously, comes from their exotic scaly look. The dragon fruit taste something like a cross between pears and kiwi. They are generally eaten by cutting them in half and eating out of the skin, or peeling them and cutting them into chunks to eat plain with yogurt or perhaps on a salad.

Duku Fruit

Duku Fruit is an Asian fruit with a whitish flesh and hard shell. It is supposed to taste like grapes. It is a high fiber fruit which obviously brings on a host of known and purported health benefits.

Durian

Durian are grown in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. While the fruit has a sweet flavor, its most notable feature is its terrible smell which is sometimes described as rotten cheese. The oval fruit are quite large growing to 2-7 pounds and covered in spikes. They are all but never exported, so you will have to go to SE Asia to try this exotic fruit. The smell is so bad, they are banned on most public transport in regions where they are grown. Despite this, they are used in a variety of sweet and savory regional recipes.