Note 350 — Chapter LXVI

The guanavana is called sour sop in the West Indies (Anona muricata Lin.), where Cieza de Leon must have seen it. It has long been naturalized in India, as well as the A. squamosa (custard apple) and A. reticulata (sweet sop), and on occasions of famine these fruits have literally proved the staff of life to the natives in some parts of the country. (Drury’s Useful Plants of India, p. 41.)

But the fruit which Cieza de Leon here mistakes for the guanavana or sour sop is, no doubt, the delicious chirimoya (Anona cherimolia Mill.) Von Tschudi says of it: “It would certainly be difficult to name any fruit possessing a more exquisite flavour. The fruit is of a roundish form, somewhat pyramidal or heart-shaped, the broad base uniting with the stem. Externally it is green, covered with small knobs and scales. The skin is rather thick and tough. Internally the fruit is snow-white and juicy, and provided with a number of black seeds. The taste is incomparable. Both the fruit and flowers of the chirimoya emit a fine fragrance. The tree which bears this finest of all fruits is from fifteen to twenty feet high.” Mrs. Clements Markham introduced the cultivation of this delicious fruit into Southern India in 1861.