CHAPTER XL 



THE GUAVA. 



THE Guava (Psidium guayaba) may be called the apple of 

 the tropics. From its original home in tropical America, it 

 has become dispersed over all equatorial regions. As the 

 tops, which succumb to several degrees of frost, are promptly 

 renewed from the roots and bear in a few months, it is often 

 grown in a small way in subtropical climates. As soon as 

 the repugnance to its penetrating and rather unpleasant odor 

 has been overcome, it is accounted one of the most fascinat- 

 ing of fruits, either fresh or made into jelly, marmalade, pud- 

 dings, and pies. 



In productiveness it exceeds almost any known fruit-tree. 

 In subtropical regions the regular crop ripens gradually from 

 August to October, but there are a few scatttering specimens 

 to be found maturing at all seasons. If the whole ripened at 

 once the branches would bend to the ground with their load, 

 of which there is a perennial renewal and no barren years. 

 In the tropics it is often a pest, springing up everywhere from 

 seeds dropped by the birds, and overrunning abandoned plan- 

 tations till they become transformed into impenetrable 

 jungles. In Southern Florida it is an inmate of every garden, 

 and some of the large white-fleshed kinds brought from the 

 East Indies are among the most delicious and fascinating 

 fruits in cultivation. 



The leaf, resembling that of a cherry, is rounded at the end 

 and of a wine-color while young. Flowers white, axillary, 

 fragrant, and produced in great abundance. 



The fruit is round or pyriform, with a white or yellow skin, 

 and a most refreshing sub-acid pulp, of the same color or 

 sometimes crimson, containing many small seeds. It ranges 

 from the size of a cherry to that of a large pear or apple. 



Two kinds, P. Cattleyanum and P. lucidum, are very dis- 

 665 



