Pitahaya — the fruit Oviedo described, drew, and made ink from

Book VIII, chapter XXVI of Oviedo's Historia general is a description of the dragon fruit: fist-sized, scarlet, scaly-looking, borne on leafless four-cornered arms longer than a man's reach. Oviedo says plainly he would choose many other fruits before it, records that the red-fleshed kind turns urine the colour of blood and the yellow-skinned kind does not, notes that he drew it, and reports that he made ink from it and wrote with it. A 2021 genome paper explains the pigment he was watching.