Annona muricata L.

• Title

  Annona muricata L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Annona muricata L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Annona muricata Guanabana Sour Sop Family Annonaceae Custard Apple Family Annona muricata Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 536. 1753. Interesting by large, light yellow flowers borne on the wood of branches away from the leaves, followed by large, pulpy, softly prickly, and pleasantly acid, pendulous fruits, which furnish a delicious drink, the Sour Sop tree is frequent on hillsides and in woodlands and thickets in Porto Rico, ascending to at least 700 meters elevation. It is also wild on Vieques, and eastward through the Virgin Islands, and distributed nearly all over the West Indies, widely planted for its fruit in tropical regions. The wood is soft, light brown and durable. The fruit must have been available to the aborigines of Porto Rico. Annona (from Hanon, an aboriginal name) is a Linnaean genus, with the species here illustrated typical. There are 50 species, or more, trees and shrubs, of tropical and subtropical distribution, with alternate, untoothed leaves, and regular, perfect, mostly large flowers, borne solitary, or in clusters, The calyx is 3-parted; the corolla usually has 6 petals, in 2 series, the inner series often small, sometimes wanting; the numerous stamens have fleshy filaments which bear a pair of pollen-sacs (anther) on the back. The ovary is composed of many, usually cohering carpels, each containing 1 ovule. The large, fleshy fruit is formed of the united carpels. Annona muricata (referring to the soft, spine-like structures on the fruit) is a tree, which may reach 10 meters in height, but is usually much lower, sometimes shrub-like, the bark smooth and gray, the gray twigs slender. The oblong or oblong-obovate, thick, short-stalked, pointed leaves are from 8 to 15 centimeters long, green and shining above, somewhat rusty and with small pockets in the axils of the veins beneath. The light yellow flowers, are borne on stout stalks, and are usually solitary; the triangular lobes of the calyx are pointed; the outer petals are ovate, thick, concave, pointed, from 3 to 4 centimeters long, with a heart-shaped base, and do not overlap; the inner petals are smaller, relatively thin, and overlapping. The fruit is green, ovoid, or ellipsoid, unpleasantly odorous, 12 to 20 centimeters long, areolate, each areole bearing a flashy, curved spinule; its white pulp is juicy, and acid. The oblong-elliptic seeds are brown, from about 1.5 to nearly 2 centimeters long. Four other Annonas inhabit Porto Rico; of these, Annona reticulata is also illustrated in this work.