Skip to main content

Sweetsop (Annona squamosa)

Srikaya or sweetsop (Annona squamosa) is a plant species in the Annonaceae, a small tree or shrub, branched, 3-8 meters high, highly adaptive to soil type and elevation, producing edible fruit with sweet, whitish and watery flesh.

A. squamosa has light brown branches with leaf scars and a bright yellow interior. Twigs turn brown with light brown lenticels.

Dlium Sweetsop (Annona squamosa)


Leaves are thin, simple, alternate, 5-17 cm long, 2-6 cm wide, rounded base and tapered tip. Pale green on both surfaces. The leaf stalks are 0.4-2.2 cm long and green in color.

Flowers solitary or in short lateral clusters, 2.5 cm long, yellow-green on peduncles 2 cm long. The three outer petals are green, purplish at the base, oval, 1.6-2.5 cm long and 0.6-0.75 cm wide.

The stamens are numerous, white, less than 1.6 cm long and the ovaries are light green. Each pistil forms a separate tubercle, generally 1.3-1.9 cm long and 0.6-1.3 cm wide.

Soft fruit aggregates formed from many carpels, loose and almost free. grow and mature. The fruit is heart-shaped, yellow-green, 5-10 cm in diameter with many rounded protrusions and covered with flour.



The flesh is yellowish-white, edible and sweet-scented. Each carpel contains an oval seed, shiny and smooth, dark brown to black and 1.3-1.6 cm long.

Srikaya requires a tropical or subtropical climate with summer temperatures of 25-41C, moderate drought tolerance, 700 millimeters (28 inches) of annual rainfall and will not produce well during droughts. It grows at elevations of 0-2000 meters and does well in hot dry climates.

The leaves are boiled to treat dysentery and urinary tract infections. The leaves are pounded as a poultice and rubbed on the wound. The leaves were rubbed on the floor and placed in the hens' nests to keep fleas away. The fruit is eaten fresh or processed into juice.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Magnoliales
Family: Annonaceae
Genus: Annona
Species: Annona squamosa

Popular Posts

Black potato (Coleus rotundifolius)

Black potato ( Coleus rotundifolius ) is a species of plant in Lamiaceae, herbaceous, fibrous roots and tubers, erect and slightly creeping stems, quadrangular, thick, and slightly odorous. Single leaves, thick, membranous, opposite and alternate. Leaves are oval, dark green and shiny on the upper side, bright green on the lower side. Up to 5 cm long, up to 4 cm wide, slightly hairy and pinnate leaf veins. Leaf stalks up to 4 cm long. Small, purple flowers. Star-shaped petals, lip-shaped crown, dark to light purple with a slightly curved tube shape. Flowering from February-August. Small tubers, brown and white flesh and tuber length 2-4 cm. Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphylum: Angiospermae Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Lamiales Family: Lamiaceae Subfamily: Nepetoideae Tribe: Ocimeae Subtribe: Plectranthinae Genus: Coleus Species: Coleus rotundifolius

Wild durian (Cullenia exarillata)

Wild durian ( Cullenia exarillata ) is a species of plant in the Malvaceae, a tall tree with smooth, greyish-white bark, peeling on older trees, a straight trunk, horizontal branches and often with a series of knob-like tubercles for flower and fruit attachment. C. exarillata has young branches and the underside of the leaves is covered with golden brown peltate or shield-like scales. The leaves are single, alternate, glabrous, glossy green on the upper side and covered with silvery or orange peltate scales on the underside. Hermaphroditic flowers are tubular and also covered with golden brown scales, 4-5 cm long and cream or reddish brown in color. Flowers have no petals, formed of tubular bracteoles and tubular calyxes, 5-lobed. Fruit is round, 10-13 cm in diameter, covered with thorns and clustered along the branches. Many seeds, reddish brown, 4-5 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. The seeds are enclosed by a fleshy, whitish aril. The fruit splits open when ripe and dries to release the s...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...