Annona squamosa is a small, well-branched tree or shrub from the family Annonaceae that bears edible fruits called sugar-apples or sweetsops. It tolerates a tropical lowland climate better than its relatives Annona reticulata and Annona cherimola helping make it the most widely cultivated of these species. Annona squamosa is a small, semi- deciduous, much branched shrub or small tree to tall similar to soursop.
Description
The fruit of A. squamosa has sweet whitish pulp, and is popular in tropical markets. ;Stems and leaves: Branches with light brown bark and visible leaf scars; inner bark light yellow and slightly bitter; twigs become brown with light brown dots. ;Flowers: Solitary or in short lateral clusters of 2–4 about long, greenish-yellow flowers on a hairy, slender long stalk. Three green outer petals, purplish at the base, oblong, to long, and to wide, three inner petals reduced to minute scales or absent. Very numerous stamens; crowded, white, less than long; ovary light green. Styles white, crowded on the raised axis. Each pistil forms a separate tubercle, mostly to long and to wide which matures into the aggregate fruit. ;Fruits and reproduction: Aggregate and soft fruits form from the numerous and loosely united pistils of a flower which become enlarged and mature into fruits which are distinct from fruits of other species of genus.
Like most species of Annona, it requires a tropical or subtropical climate with summer temperatures from to, and mean winter temperatures above. It is sensitive to cold and frost, being defoliated below and killed by temperatures of a couple of degrees below freezing. It is only moderately drought-tolerant, requiring at least 700 mm of annual rainfall, and will not produce fruit well during droughts. It will grow from sea level to and does well in hot dry climates, differing in its tolerance of lowland tropics from many of the other fruit bearers in the Annona family. It is quite a prolific bearer, and it will produce fruit in as little as two to three years. A five-year-old tree can produce as many as 50 sugar apples. Poor fruit production has been reported in Florida because there are few natural pollinators ; however, hand pollination with a natural fiber brush is effective in increasing yield. Natural pollinators include beetles of the families Nitidulidae, Staphylinidae, Chrysomelidae, Curculionidae and Scarabeidae. In the Philippines, the fruit is commonly eaten by the Philippine fruit bat, which then spreads the seeds from island to island. It is a host plant for larvae of the butterfly Graphium agamemnon.
