From Common trees of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
by Elbert L. Little, Roy O. Woodbury and Frank H. Wadsworth
Malpighia family (MALPIGHIACEAE)
Acerola, The West Indian Cherry
Malpighia punicifola L.
Acerola, a shrub or small tree, is planted occasionally for its
slightly sour edible fruit. It is identified by: 1, rounded red or
scarlet fleshy fruits 3/8 to ¾ inch in diameter, like cherries but
slightly flattened, on short stalks at leaf bases; 2, opposite,
elliptic leaves ¾ to 2½ inches long and ½ to 1½ inches wide, blunt,
rounded, or slightly notched at the apex; and 3, flowers on short
stalks at leaf base, about ¾ inch across the 5 spreading pink
stalked and fringed petals.
Evergreen shrub about 8 feet high
or sometimes a small tree to 20 feet high and 4 inches in trunk
diameter. The bark is brown or gray and smooth, with light brown dots
(lenticels). The twigs are gray, ringed at nodes, with whitish dots
(lenticels), hairless. The opposite leaves have short leafstalks 1/14
to 1/8 inch long. Blades are mostly blunt at base, not toothed on
edges, thin, hairless or nearly so, the upper surface slightly shiny
green, and lower surface dull light green.
The flowers are few
or 2 at base of a leaf on short slender hairy stalks about ¼ inch long.
Parts of a flower are the calyx of 5 pointed greenish hairy sepals 1/14
inch long, each with 2 oblong green glands at base; 5 spreading pink
petals about 5/16 inch long, rounded and fringed, with narrow stalk at
base; 10 stamens united into tube at base; and pistil with short ovary
and 3 styles. The fruits (drupes) are rounded but slightly flattened,
with calyx persistent at base and styles at apex, slightly sour edible
pulp, and large rounded stone 3-celled and 3 seeded. With flowers and
fruits from spring to fall. The fruits, eaten raw and in preserves, are
one of the richest sources of the essential vitamin C. Vitamin pills
have been made from the pressed dried fruit pulp. The common name
cherry is suggested by the resemblance of the fruit to the cultivated
cherry of temperate climates. The latter is not related botanically,
belonging to species of Prunus in the rose family (Rosaceae).
Acerola
is planted occasionally both for fruit and ornament and sometimes
escapes from cultivation in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and may
be naturalized locally. Recorder from St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John,
and Tortola.
Public Park.Virgin Islands.
Range: Jamaica and from St. Martin and St. Barts to Barbados and
Trinidad. Also southern Mexico, British Honduras, Guatemala, and
Honduras and northern South America from Colombia to Venezuela, Dutch
Antilles, Ecuador, and Peru. Planted elsewhere in the tropics of both
hemispheres.
Other Common Names:
cereze, cereza colorada (puerto Rico); West Indian-cherry,
Barbados-cherry, cherry (Virgin Island, English); cereze, cerezo
(Spanish); guayacte (Mexico); grosella (Panama); semeruco (Venezuela);
cerisier, cerise de St. Domingue (Haiti); cherry (Jamaica, The
Grenadines); cherry, shimarucu (Dutch Antilles).
Malipighia thompsonii Britton & Small was named as a new shrub species from St. Croix, related to M. punicifolia
but larger in leaves, fruits, and other parts and with more flowers.
This shrub, perhaps a tetraploid, has been reduced to a horticultural
variety of the latter.
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Bibliography
Little, Elbert L., et al. "Acerola, The West Indian Cherry." Common trees of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Series: Agriculture Handbook no. 449, Second Volume, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Sept. 1974, Internet Archive, Public Domain, archive.org/details/treesofpuertoric02litt. Accessed 17 Sept. 2021.
Published 17 Sept. 2021 LR
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