R156 (Muar Gading)

R156, registered in Malaysia as 'Muar Gading' (and listed by some Malaysian sources as 'Gading Mas'), is the best-known yellow-skinned rambutan and the outlier in a crop where red is the norm. It was part of the 1973 Malaysian clone import into north Queensland, where a ten-person taste panel ranked its fruit first of five clones -- slightly less sweet than the reds but with a tang the panel preferred. Its defining number is flesh recovery: 60.03 percent in Northern Territory clone comparisons, the highest of the fourteen clones tabulated, and 57 percent in Malaysian clone descriptions. Confusingly, both a yellow and a red-skinned form circulate under the R156 number in Hawaii, and the Puerto Rico trial specified 'R-156 (Y)' to distinguish them. It is grown as much for novelty and eating quality as for tonnage.