Syzygium samarangense

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iSyzygium samarangense

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Myrtales
Family:	Myrtaceae
Genus:	Syzygium
Species:	S. samarangense

Binomial name

Syzygium samarangense
(Blume) Merrill & Perry

Syzygium samarangense (syn. Eugenia javanica) is a species in the Myrtaceae, native to Malaysia and Indonesia. Common names include wax apple, java apple, water apple, mountain apple, jambu air ("water guava" in Malay), wax jambu, and bell fruit.

It is a small tree growing to 12 m tall, with evergreen leaves 10-25 cm long and 5-10 cm broad. The flowers are white, 2.5 cm diameter, with four petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a bell-shaped edible berry, with colors ranging from white, pale green, green, red, purple, crimson, to deep purple or even black, 4-6 cm long in wild plants. The flowers and resulting fruit are not limited to the axils of the leaves and can appear on nearly any point on the surface of the trunk and branches.

[edit] Cultivation and uses

The fruit has a crunchy texture, which is sweet and very juicy, and it has nothing similar to an apple. The fruit's pith is like cotton. As well as in its native range, it is also cultivated in tropical regions such as Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, and India. A number of cultivars with larger fruit have been selected. In general, the paler or darker the color is, the sweeter it is. In South East Asia, the black ones are nicknamed "Black Pearl" or "Black Diamond," while the very pale greenish white ones are called "Pearl." They are among the highest priced ones in fruit markets.

When choosing a good wax apple, look for ones with the bottom segments closed up because open holes signify worm eggs inside the fruit. Also, usually the reddest fruits are the sweetest.

The wax apple tree also grows in the Caribbean. On Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, the fruit is called kashu Sürnam in Papiamentu, which means kashu or cashew from Surinam, while in Surinam the fruit is called Curaçaose appel (apple from Curaçao in Dutch).

In the Pacific Islands, this fruit is known as Mountain Apple. In the Fiji Islands it is common in the outskirts of forests. Called "Kavika" in Fiji, it is well-documented as a medicinal plant (particularly the bark of the Kavika tree).

In Saint Kitts and Nevis it is commonly known as "morroca," a corruption of Morroco, from where the plant was imported to St. Kitts in colonial days.

In Taiwan and China, it is known by a phonetic approximation "lian wu" (Traditional Chinese: 蓮霧; pinyin: lián wù; POJ: lián-bū).