Beyond modest looks
The Hindu : Both as a tree and as a fruit, custard apple is generally rated as mediocre or as “the ugly duckling”. The tree is not especially attractive. It is erect, with a rounded or spreading crown. Its trunk is 10 to 14 inches thick. The tree grows up to a height ranging from 15 to 35 feet. The ill-smelling leaves are deciduous, alternate, oblong or narrow, four to eight inches long and 2.5 cm wide, with conspicuous veins. The flowers which grow in drooping clusters, are fragrant and slender with three outer fleshy, narrow petals three-quarter to one-and-a-quarter-inch long; light-green externally and pale-yellow with a dark-red or purple spot on the inside at the base. The flowers never fully open.The compound fruit, eight to 16 cm in diameter, may be symmetrically heart-shaped, irregular; or nearly round, or oblate, with a deep or shallow depression at the base. The skin, thin but tough, may be yellow or brownish when ripe, with a pink, reddish or brownish-red blush, and faintly, moderately, or distinctly reticulated. There is a thick, cream-white layer of custard-like, somewhat granular, flesh beneath the skin surrounding the moderately juicy segments, in many of which there is a single, hard, dark-brown or black, glossy seed, oblong, smooth and less than 1.25 cm long. A fruit may have as many as 55 to 60 seeds. A pointed, fibrous, central core, attached to the thick stem, extends more than halfway through the fruit. The flavour is sweet and agreeable.Custard apple is believed to be a native of the West Indies but was cultivated in early times through Central America to southern Mexico. It has for long been cultivated and naturalised as far South as Peru and Brazil.The tree needs a tropical climate but with cool winters. In India, it does well on the plains up to an elevation of 4,000 ft. This species is less drought-tolerant than the…More
