Flora of the Hawaiian Islands
Literature for Muntingia calabura
Stone, 1970; AgroForestryTree Database, accessed 10 Dec. 2010. http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/Products/AFDbases/af/asp/SpeciesInfo.asp?SpID=18091; Lorence & Wagner 2020.
   Muntingiaceae Bibliography
      Muntingia calabura
General Information
DistributionNative to tropical America, now widely cultivated for its edible fruit and naturalized in many tropical regions.
Habit
Small, evergreen tree, 3‒12 m tall, branches horizontal, pendent towards the tip; branchlets, petioles, and pedicels softly pubescent with simple and gland-tipped hairs.
Leaves
Leaves distichous, simple, short-petiolate; blade ovate-lanceolate, 4‒15 cm long, 1‒6.5 cm wide, apex acuminate, base obliquely subcordate with asymmetrical sides, margin serrate, abaxial leaf surface softly grayish pubescent; petiole 3‒5 mm long; stipules linear, ca. 5 mm long, caducous.
Flowers
Inflorescences 1‒3(‒5)-flowered supra-axillary fascicles, perfect, but only first flower of fascicle forming fruit. Flowers on pedicel ca. 2‒3 cm long; sepals 5(6‒7), ca. 1 cm long, lanceolate-caudate, tomentose-hirsute; petals 5(6‒7), white or sometimes pink, broadly obovate to spatulate, 12‒13 mm long, 4‒6 mm wide; number of stamens increasing from 10‒25 in the first emerging flower in the fascicle to 75‒100 in the last, filaments slender, distinct, 6 mm long, white, anthers small, yellow; ovary stipitate, with annular disc, glabrous, 5-locular, stigma capitate, 5-ridged, persistent.
Fruit
Fruit red, 5-locular subglobose, 10‒15 mm in diameter, with several thousand tiny seeds in the soft, sweet, edible pulp.
Seeds
Seeds ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm long, yellowish white.
Contributor
David Lorence