Plant · P-503

Sugar Apple

Annona squamosa

Sugar Apple is a small tree that produces a knobbly green fruit with segmented white pulp about 20 percent sugar, eaten fresh with a spoon or made into sherbet, ice cream and jelly. It sheds its leaves in a cool or dry season and thrives in hot, humid summers, but natural fruit set is near zero to about 3 percent because its usual pollinators, nitidulid beetles, are scarce - hand pollination can lift set to nearly 100 percent. Every part but the fruit is dangerous: the seeds, leaves and roots are poisonous, carrying both an alkaloid and hydrocyanic acid, so prunings and seed need to stay well away from stock, poultry and children.