FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
PSIDIUM GUAJAVA, APPLE GUAVA, YELLOW GUAVA
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a plant of tropical America. There are two varieties which are by some classed as species: P. pomiferum Linn., the apple-shaped, and P. pyriforme Griseb. or pyriferum Linn., the pear-shaped. This species is very largely cultivated in the vicinity of Campos, Brazil. The fruit is made into a sweetmeat and is exported in great quantities. In the Quito region, says Herrera, there are guayabos that produce fruit like apples, with many kernels, some white and some red, well tasted and wholesome. The fruit is globular, varying from the size of a plum to that of an apple and resembles an orange. The taste is rather bitter but the fruit makes an excellent preserve. The cultivation of the guava has been carried on from time immemorial, as is shown by the fruit frequently being seedless. The guava reached the East Indies through the agency of the Portuguese and Spaniards. It has but recently reached China and the Philippines, the west coast of Africa and the Island of Mauritius. Voight says, in India, its fruit is of delicious flavor. Firminger states that those he has gathered have been nothing better than a hard, uneatable berry. The guava is cultivated in the West Indies, in Florida and elsewhere, and the fruits are occasionally seedless. The fruit is smooth, crowned with the calyx, not unlike in shape and size to a pomegranate, having an agreeable smell and turning yellow when ripe. The rind is about an eighth of an inch in thickness, brittle and fleshy and contains a firm pulp of white, red or yellow color in the different varieties and is of an agreeable taste. It is full of bony seeds. The fruit is esteemed raw and also in preserves.
