Saturday, February 7, 2009

Costa Rican Guava Psidium friedrichsthalianum



Family: Myrtaceae •
Genus: Psidium •
Species: friedrichsthalianum •
Country of Origin: Central and South America •
Common Names: Costa Rican Guava, Cas •

This is the best guava I've tasted to date. It's sour!!! It has a wonderful taste similar to Pineapple Guava Feijoa sellowiana. It is an attractive tree, just look at the red stems and petioles. It ultimately can reach 35 feet. The white flowers are fragrant and typical of this genus. This tree is susceptible to cold. (Update 07-22-2010) My three foot tree made it through < 28 °F this winter. This species is a lot more cold hardy than most sources have stated in the past including Morton. It also grows quite vigorously here in South Florida. 

here's a little more info not much out there on this species
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/costa_rican_guava.html


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Costa Rican Guava Psidium friedrichsthalianum by Eric Bronson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.flickr.com

3 comments:

Sunita Mohan said...

How interesting! Is it sour through and through, or sour-sweet? Does it get bigger?

Hermes said...

Never had one of those either. So small but looks delicious. Do you just eat them on their own ?

Eric Bronson said...

@ Sunita I'd say sour-sweet with a delicious aftertaste.

@ Hermes I was eating them out-of-hand but many may find it a little to tart for that!! It would make a wonderful ade!!!