Plant · P-495

Surinam Cherry

Eugenia uniflora

Surinam Cherry is an evergreen shrub or small tree from South America that produces a ribbed fruit ripening red to near-black, rich in pectin and vitamin C, eaten fresh or made into jam, jelly, pie, juice and sherbet, with flavor ranging from sweet and spicy to peppery and sour depending on the plant. It takes shearing well and is often grown as a dense hedge, and a container-grown plant is a realistic way to get a crop where winters bring real frost, since mature plants only shrug off a few degrees of cold before suffering. Birds and mammals spread its seed widely, and where the climate suits it the plant has become a serious thicket-forming invasive that crowds out native regeneration, so it needs harvesting hard and keeping away from waterways.