Psidium gujava (Genuine Guava)

The guava isw a small tree of height to about 20 feet. The leaves are simple. The flowers apperar singly in the leaf axils. The white flowers have a diameter up to 0.8 inches. There are spherical or egg-shaped berries, which are about 0.8 to 4.8 inches long and are yellow when ripe. The berries are sometimes used as guavas.

The tree originated in tropical America from Mexico to Brazil, its name comes from the language of the Arawak Indians, and was borrowed from Spanish (guayaba) into German. The guava is a native fruit tree in Brazil. Today it is cultivated throughout the tropics.

The strongly vitamin C-containing fruit pulp has a yellowish-greenish color with a pleasant sweet-sour taste. The many seeds can be eaten. When you boil this discolors the pulp salmon-pink. The fruits are preserved in cans and made into jelly, jam (here in Brazil goiabada), water pipe tabac, syrups or savory chutneys. By pressing one gets the guava juice, which is offered as guava nectar in sales and mixed in many multivitamin juices.

One of our specimens of the genuine guava in our garden

in August 2009.

Close-up view of the leaves of the genuine guava in August 2009.

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Created by Joachim Jaeck on December 1st, 2009