Annona squamosa
Malayalam Name(s): Aathi, Aatha, Aathachakka, Amruthakkai, Seethappazham
English name(s): Sugar apple, Custard apple, Sweet sop, Sweetsop-Anon, Araticum
Habit: Tree
Flowering & Fruiting: June-October
Habitat: Cultivated and almost naturalised
Description: Trees, to 6 m high, brownish or brownish-black; branchlets seriaceous, glabrous when mature. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous, estipulate; petiole 6-20 mm long, stout, glabrous, grooved above; lamina 5-17 x 2-7 cm, ovate, ovate-lanceolate or elliptic-oblong, base acute, obtuse, cuneate, or round, apex acute or obtuse, margin entire, glabrous, glaucous beneath, coriaceous; lateral nerves 8-12 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae reticulate. Flowers bisexual, axillary, solitary or a few together, leaf-opposed; pedicels 1-3 cm long, glabrous; sepals 3, 2-3 x 3-4 mm, broadly ovate, shortly acuminate, pubescent outside; petals 6 [3+3], outer 3 petals, 1.5-3 x. 3-0.5 cm, linear-oblong, keeled inside, thick, greenish-white or yellow, reddish at base inside, pubescent outside, inner three petals usually missing or rudimentary, ovate, ca. 1 mm long; stamens many, ca. 1 mm long, anther thecae narrow, with ovoid top of connectives; carpels many, superior, ca. 1 mm long, subconnate, ovoid, pubescent, 1-ovuled, style oblong, stigma entire. Fruit an aggregate of berry, 8-10 cm across, ovoid, greenish, glabrous, tuberculate with rounded tips, glaucous, pulp white; seeds many, black, shiny.
