| General Information |
| Distribution | Native to tropical America, now widely cultivated for its edible fruit and naturalized in many tropical regions.
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Habit
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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.
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Leaves
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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.
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Flowers
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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.
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Fruit
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Fruit red, 5-locular subglobose, 10‒15 mm in diameter, with several thousand tiny seeds in the soft, sweet, edible pulp.
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Seeds
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Seeds ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm long, yellowish white.
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Contributor
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David Lorence
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