The blossoms are unisexual and sweet-scented. They have five flower petals, are greenish-white and bloom on warm months. The fruit is pear-shaped. When it matures, it changes from green to a shiny red to yellow-orange, and breaks open to disclose three big, bright black seeds, circled by soft, creamy or sponge like, white to yellow flesh. The fruit generally weighs 100-200 grams.

Though indigenous to West Africa, ingestion of ackee for food happens primarily in Jamaican cuisine. Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica and ackee and saltfish is the national dish. The Ackee fruit is not palatable as a whole. Just the inner flesh of the yellow arils are eaten. The black colored shiny seeds, the ends of the arils, and the bright red pod enclosing the 3 or 4 arils are all discarded.

It is essential for ackees to be harvested, processed and cooked the right way. The pods must be allowed to mature and split naturally while on the tree prior to picking. Before the ackee arils are cooked they need to be cleaned, water-washed then boiled and the water, once the fruit is boiled, disposed: immature ackees and the internal red tissue of the mature ackee arils contain strong alkaloid toxins which could bring on vomiting, seizures and mortal hypoglycemia renowned as the Jamaican vomiting sickness. Some people have died from consuming unripe ackee fruit.

Though it might be poisonous if it is improperly prepared, nevertheless the ackee fruit is highly dense in nutritional value, including protein, zinc, vitamin A and the all-important essential fatty acids. The fruit also makes a tasteful dish when cooked with tomatoes, onions and salted codfish

The vegetable oil extracted from the ackee contains numerous important nutrients particularly fatty acids encountered in the fruit. Ackee oil makes a significant contribution to the diet of a lot of Jamaicans. The dried out seeds, fruit, bark and leaves are employed medicinally. The fruit is utilized to make soap in some regions of Africa. It is also used as a fish poison.

The canned ackee fruit is a product of major export in Jamaica. During the year 2005 the industry for ackee fruit in the island was prized at about $400 million. The importation of canned ackee into the U.S. was disallowed at times, owed to unripe ackee arilli being included in the product.

However, importation of canned ackee fruit is presently permitted if the amount of hypoglycin present satisfies the criteria of the FDA or Food and Drug Administration. In 2005 the first commercialized dispatch of canned ackee from Haiti were O.K.ed by the US-FDA for delivery to the United States marketplace.

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