Dragon fruit (Hylocereus undatus) is a tropical fruit that belongs to the climbing cacti (Cactaceae) family.

Widely
cultivated in Vietnam, the fruit is popular in Southeast Asia and is, Apart from being refreshing and tasty, the dragon
fruit is a rich source of vitamin C, calcium and phosphorus, and is known to aid digestion

The dragon fruit’s scientific name is derived from the Greek word hyle (woody), the Latin word cereus (waxen)
and the Latin word undatus, which refers to the wavy edges of its stems.3 The origin of the dragon fruit is unknown, but
it is probably native to Central America.4 It is also known as pitahaya in Mexico, and pitaya roja in Central America and
northern South America. The Spanish name pitahaya may also refer to several other species of tall cacti with flowering
fruit.5

The French introduced the fruit into Vietnam over a hundred years ago.6 According to some accounts, the
French took the fruit from Nicaragua and Colombia, while others say the French brought it with them from Guyana
(South America) in 1870 as an ornamental plant.7 Today, Vietnam is the world’s leading exporter of dragon fruit, with
revenues from dragon fruit making up 55 percent of the country’s fruit export turnover

However, the fruit is also increasingly being cultivated in other countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Israel,
northern Australia, southern China, the Philippines and Hawaii, challenging Vietnam’s dominance. China, which imports
77 percent of Vietnam’s dragon fruit production, has successfully cultivated the crop on 20,000 ha of land in Guangdong
and Guangxi provinces alone, an area roughly equal to that dedicated to the plant in the whole of Vietnam.

The plant is a climbing cactus vine that grows well in dry areas. Because of its epiphytic nature, it grows best in
soil with a high level of organic materials. Its flowers bloom only at night, hence the plant is sometimes also called the
“moonflower” or “Lady of the Night”.The flowers, which bloom for only one night, are white and large, measuring 30 cm
long or more. They are bell-shaped and produce a sweet fragrance when in bloom. Pitahaya plants can have between
four to six fruiting cycles in one year. It can be propagated by seed or by stem cuttings.

The dragon fruit has a dramatic appearance, with bright pink- and yellow-skinned varieties and prominent
scales. The fruit is oval, elliptical or pear-shaped. The flesh has a subtly flavoured sweet taste or sometimes slightly
sourish taste.The flesh is either white or red, with black seeds dotted all over. The seeds, which resemble those of a kiwi,
are edible.

The dragon fruit is closely related to the orchid cacti, or epiphyllum, which are known for their large and
impressive flowers. The pitahaya can be cross-pollinated with the epiphyllum
Dragon fruit a recently introduced super fruit in India, is considered to be a promising, Remunerative fruit crop.
Fruit has very attractive colour and mellow mouth melting pulp with
Black colour edible seed embeded in the pulp along with tremendous nutritive property which
 Attract the growers from different part of India to cultivate this fruit crop which is originated in Mexico and
Central and South America (Britton and Rose, 1963; Morton, 1987 and Mizrahi et al., 1997).

It is a long day plant with beautiful night blooming flower that is nicknamed as “Noble Woman” or “Queen of
the Night”. The fruit is also known as Strawberry Pear, Dragon fruit, Pithaya, Night blooming Cereus, Belle of the night,
Conderella plant and Jesus in The Cradle. Fruit is named as pitaya because of the bracts or scales on the fruit skin and
hence the name of pitaya meaning ‘‘the scaly fruit’’. It has ornamental value due to the beauty of their large flowers (25
cm) that bloom at night; they are creamy white in color. It is considered as a fruit crop for future (Gunasena and
pushpakumara, 2006 and Gunasena et al., 2006)

The fruit comes in three types, all with leathery, slightly leafy skin: Hylocereus undatus—white flesh with pink
skin, Hylocereus polyrhizus– red flesh with pink skin, Hylocereus costaricencis – with violet red flesh and pink skin
and Hylocereus (Selenicerus) megalanthus – White flesh with yellow skin.

The biggest advantage of this crop is that once planted, it will grow for about 20 years, and 1 Hectare could
accommodate about 800 dragon fruit plant. It is being grown commercially in Israel, Vietnam, Taiwan, Nicaragua,
Australia and the United states (Merten, 2003) . It Produces fruit in the second year after planting and attain in full
production within five years. This article concentrates mainly on how to cultivate dragon fruit based on the
literature

Available and research work done in Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya with the genus Hylocereus and
species costaricensis. Hylocereus comprises 16 species, which are endemic to Latin America and they are not very well
known among the growers and researchers and have only recently been the subject of studies. Very few research works
have been done on this fruit Crop.

Colours play an important role in enhancing the aesthetic appeal of food products. Owing to some food
processing procedures such as heat treatment, pH changes, light exposure and storage condition, many food
products suffered colour loss.

Previously, synthetic food colourants are incorporated to recover colour loss and to enhance the
appearance of food products. Unfortunately, some synthetic colourants such as tartrazine (E102) and sudan
red which has prolong history in food industry has been reported to be heath hazardous lately ( Sasaki et al.,
2002; Ahlstrom et al., 2005). Although, the side effects of some synthetic colourants remained controversial,
this further alarmed the consumers about the safety of synthetic colourant. In addition, the tightening
governments restrictions are some reasons persuade the food industries to search for alternative colours. As a
replacement colouring agent, it must at least fulfilled two major concerns in which it should be free of side
effects and harmless to public health.

Natural pigments from biological sources came into consideration especially pigment extracted from
plant, fungi, bacteria, algae and insect. Some major categories of plant pigments include betalain,
anthocyanins and other flavonoids, carotenoids and chlorophylls. Among these categories of pigment,
anthocyanin earned the most attention due to its colour and antioxidant properties ( Stintzing et al.,
2002a; Awika et al., 2004). Although betalain is the five most widely used colourants in the food industries
(Jackman and Smith, 1996), research involved in betalain has not been as thorough as compare to its counter
parts. Betalain is a class of natural pigments comprising yellow betaxanthins and betacya nins.

Several extraction methods have been development to ease the extraction of betalain pigment form
various fruit. Stintzing et al. (2002b) reported the extraction method used for betalain from purple pitaya
(Hylocereus polyrhizus). On the other hand, a method applying preparative ion-pair high-speed counter
current chromatography (IP-HSCCC) has been reported recently (Wybraniec et al., 2009; Jerz et al., 2008). This
method was tested on purple pitaya and Phytolacca americana (Phytolaccaceae).
Purple pitaya is well known as red dragon fruit in Malaysia due to its deep bluish red appearance. The report
mentioned that vitamin C added up to one per cent demonstrated a promising observation in stabilizing the
pigment. Therefore, betalain extracted from purple pitaya or red dragon fruit as an alternative source of red
beetroot betalain is optimistic. In the present study, locally cultivated red dragon fruit was chosen as the
source of betalain. Storage stability of red dragon fruit betalain in different treatments and storage conditions
was observed.

Cosmetics are incredible in demand since historical time till day. Lip balms are widely used to enhance the
beauty of the lips and glamour to touch to the makeup.
Dragon fruit is red or yellow scale fruit and the center of the fruit is white or red. At present, the fruit is
marketable because it is medicine. Dragon fruits help relieve patients of diabetes and cardiac diseases. Flesh of the fruit
is soft and delicious.

Peel of the fruit can be painted on the face to relieve pigsty, freckles and other facial complaints. Moreover, peels
of dragon fruits can be extracted with distilled water or a solvent to betalain. In Myanmar, Dragon fruit was cultivated in
the countryside since 2012 (The New Light of Myanmar, 7 Sep, 2012). They can be found growing in Mandalay Region
and Shan State.
 Extraction is a process that selectively dissolves one or more of the mixture components into an appropriate
solvent. A compound can be separated from impurities in a solution by extracting the compound from theoriginal (or first)
solvent into a second solvent. (http://www. chemistry. sc. chula. ac. th)

Cosmetic is applied externally to change or enhance the beauty of skin, hair, nails, lips and eyes. Lip balm or lip
salve is a wax-like substance applied topically to the lips of the mouth to moisturize and relieve chapped or dry lips,
angular cheilitis, stomatitis, or cold sores. (http://www. wikipedia. org. com) The main objective of this research work
is to extract the natural colorants from peels of dragon fruits and then to produce lip balm by using these natural colorants.