| General Information |
| Distribution | Native to Central America, widely cultivated for its edible fruit.In the Hawaiian Islands,
naturalized on
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.
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Habit
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Tree, often large; young branches terete, glabrate, often with conspicuous leaf scars.
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Leaves
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Leaves alternate, petiolate; blade dark green on adaxial surface, abaxial surface pale green, variable in shape and size, but usually elliptic, 10‒25 cm long, 5‒10 cm wide, margin entire.
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Flowers
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Inflorescences pubescent, shorter than leaves, clustered at the tips of the branches or on short, lateral young branches. Flowers with tepals equal, ca. 5 mm long, densely pubescent; fertile stamens 9, staminodia present, anthers tetrathecal; ovary pubescent.
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Fruit
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Fruit large, globose to pyriform, to 20 cm long, 10 cm wide, not subtended by persistent tepals, cupule absent.
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Seeds
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Seed 1, subglobose, to 5 cm in diameter, with thin, papery testa.
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Chromosomes
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2n = 24, 36, 48.
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Contributor
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David Lorence
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