The Multiple Uses of the Guava-By John Gifford, bt 



THE FIFTH IN A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON THE TROPICAL FRUITS THAT ARE ADAPTED 

 TO THE WARMEST SECTIONS OF OUR COUNTRY. THE SERIES BEGAN IN AUGUST, 1910 



TF THE goat is the poor man's animal, 

 *■ the guava is his fruit. It has been 

 called the "apple of Florida." When 

 frozen to the ground or burnt by fire 

 spreading from the forest to grass-grown 

 clearings, it springs Phcenix-like from its 

 root, soon yielding again an abundant 

 supply of its welcome fruit. I believe the 

 guava could be dried and cheaply shipped 

 to all parts of the world. If so, it would 

 be the cheapest dried fruit on the market. 

 Guavas fit for jelly are usually worth one 

 cent a pound. 



The smell of the ripe fruit disgusts 

 newcomers. Sometime ago some Northern 

 people claimed that there was a dead 

 rat under their floor. The smell grew 

 worse from day to day because.it was all 

 due to a guava tree by the dining-room 

 window ripening a heavy crop of fruit. 

 Now the whole family is eating the fruit. 



Many are the stories told which hinge 

 upon the smell of the plebeian but useful 

 guava. A man once shipped a crate of 

 this fruit to a friend in the North and 

 labelled it "Guavas." When it reached 

 its destination the agent sent a card saying 

 "Come get your guavas. I think he's 

 dead." 



We have a bad smelling fungus here 

 which some people call "buzzard fooler." 

 A friend has suggested that this would be 

 an appropriate name for the guava. 

 Strange, indeed, how soon one can become 

 accustomed to smells which are at first 

 nauseating. I have heard it said that the 

 Arab and one or two other races can't 

 stand the smell of even a clean white 

 man. 



The odor of the guava and a few other 

 tropical fruits, such as the ti-es and genipap, 

 is mild in comparison with some cheeses. 

 I have heard that the mangosteen, claimed 

 by some to be the prince of all fruits, has at 

 first a repelling odor which is soon counter- 

 actedby the lusciousness of the pulp. 



The nose and the palate soon adjust 

 themselves to strange smells and flavors. 

 The first time I ever tried sour-sop-ade 

 it tasted like cotton wool soaked in cider 

 vinegar. Now it belongs in the same 

 category with limeade and crushed pine- 

 apple. 



The guava, although completely dis- 

 tributed throughout the tropics in both a 

 wild and cultivated state, is undoubtedly 

 an American fruit. It has a fine name of 

 Indian origin, guajava in Spanish, agree- 

 ably shortened to guava in English. In 

 Porto Rico the guava tree is always called 

 guajava while the term "guava" is applied 

 to a large leguminous tree much used for 

 shading coffee. 



The home of the guava is probably 

 Mexico and Central America, but birds 

 and other animals carry the seeds long 



distances and, since it will grow almost 

 anywhere in a warm climate, its distri- 

 bution is wide. It is plentiful everywhere 

 and countless varieties exist. It comes up 

 quickly in abandoned clearings, which 

 exist, strange to say, even in new countries, 

 and when there is neither native nor jelly 

 factory near, it furnishes food to many 

 wild animals. I think it is generally 

 considered the greatest of all jelly fruits, 

 and guajava duke holds a high place 

 among Spanish- American peoples. The 



Cattley guavas somewhat resemble rose aDPles and 

 are about the size of ordinary piums 



sale of this jelly brings many dollars to 

 Florida, and I have seen cases of it on the 

 platforms of backwoods stations consigned 

 to almost every state in the Union and 

 even to Canada and Europe. 



They say when a Northern man gets 

 stranded in Florida he does usually one 

 of three things: he opens a law office, a 

 real estate office, or a jelly factory, and I 

 know of one man who combined these 

 three industries in the same shop! 



In addition to the common guava there 

 are several other species of the genus 

 Psidium which yield fruits of more or less 

 value. In addition there are fifty or more 

 species of fruits in South America be- 

 longing to the order Myrtaceae closely 

 related to the guava which are still await- 

 ing the skill of the horticulturist. We 

 are now trying Feijoa Sellowiana, a guava- 

 like fruit from Uruguay. The fruits are 



306 



greenish, containing a rich pulp, and "so 

 highly perfumed that baskets having held 

 them will retain their perfume for weeks." 

 The flowers are showy white and crimson 

 and the petals are edible. I have heard 

 it said that the flowers are fertilized by a 

 bird. I believe it has fruited in Cali- 

 fornia. My plants have flowered but 

 have formed no fruit. 



The genus Eugenia alone, although 

 it gives us the delicious Cayenne or Surinam 

 cherry {Eugenia pitanga) and the rose 

 apple {Eugenia Jambos), has twenty or 

 more fruit-yielding species. Closely re- 

 lated to the guava is the rose apple, the 

 fruits of which have such a sweet rosy 

 aroma that they are sickening to some 

 people, as is the odor of the tuberose and 

 of certain flower odors in the tropic, 

 which seem to overburden the atmosphere 

 on moist, still nights. Enter a narrow 

 tropical valley in a thicket of rose apple, 

 with rose apples on the ground and rose 

 apples in abundance on the trees, and it 

 will smell the way I suppose an attar of 

 rose factory smells. Caryophyllus Mal- 

 accensis, the large rose apple or Malay 

 apple, with long, dark green leaves, white, 

 purple or red flowers, and apple-odored, 

 fine-flavored fruit, or the Malacca apple or 

 the Java plum, I have not seen in Florida, 

 but the rose apple is at home and is grow- 

 ing wild along water courses in the West 

 Indies. In fact the rose apple {Eugenia 

 Jambos), called pomarosa in Spanish- 

 American countries, has been planted 

 for fuel in the neighborhood of sugar 

 estates. For this purpose it is as good as 

 eucalyptus, grows equally as fast, looks 

 like an eucalypt in general appearance 

 but yields a fruit besides and seeds big 

 enough to see and feel. The seeds of some 

 eucalypts and melaleucos are so small that 

 the slightest breath of wind will waft 

 them away. Ants love to carry off these 

 little seeds so that one must have legs 

 on the seed boxes and have each leg rest- 

 ing in a can of kerosene. Otherwise you 

 do nothing but feed the ants, some of 

 which are so smart that a friend of mine 

 declares that when they find the legs of a 

 table in cans of kerosene they will climb 

 up the walls to the ceiling and then drop 

 down upon the table. 



The rose apple and the guava have a 

 great future before them, although both 

 are high smelling fruits, one highly sweet 

 and rosy the other foetid. We know the 

 names of these tropical fruits and forest 

 trees, though even this knowledge is 

 imperfect; but as yet know practically 

 nothing as to their characters, idiosyn- 

 cracies, likes and dislikes. A banker or 

 merchant in a town would soon be bank- 

 rupt if he knew nothing more of his custo- 

 mers than the names they are known by. 



