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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.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 15–20 ft
- Mature spread
- 10–15 ft
- Plant spacing
- 15–20 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
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Atemoya
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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