WILD CUSTARD APPLE
Wild custard apple or Wild sweetsop (Annona reticulate), is a fruiting tree. They belong to the family Annonaceae. The fruit has a pleasant and sweet flavour. The tree is indigenous to tropical regions of America, particularly in West Indies and South America. Annona reticulate is a fast-growing semi-deciduous tree. The tree is mainly grown in gardens in various areas of the tropics for its edible fruit. The shape of the fruit resembles the bull’s heart and hence is also known as Bullock’s heart. It is distributed in many tropical countries, including Southeast Asia, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Australia, and Africa.
Morphological characteristics
Annona reticulate is a fast-growing semi-deciduous tree. Trees grow up to a height of 10m with numerous lateral branches. Barks are dark brown, having lenticels. Leaves are simple, alternate, exstipulate, glabrous, oblong, acute, and rounded or curate at the base. Flowers are bisexual, terminal or leaf opposed. Compound fruit can be symmetrically heart-shaped, lopsided, irregular, nearly round, or oblate with deep or shallow depression at the base. The fruit’s skin is thin but tough and can be yellow or brownish when ripe, with a pink, reddish or brownish-red blush. There is a thick white layer of custard-like flesh beneath the skin surrounding the juicy segments. There is a single dark-brown or black, glossy seed usually hard, smooth and oblong, less than half an inch long in each segment. Flowering and fruiting are during the months of May-July or September-January.
Medicinal values
Even though the tree is majorly planted as for its fruit, it has significant medicinal value. The root is powerful purgative. It is used in mental depression, spinal disorders and blood dysentery. The leaves are made into a paste without adding water and applied to unhealthy ulcers while fresh juice to nostrils in hysteria and fainting. Extract from the bark or dried or pulverized unripe fruit is used to treat dysentery and diarrhoea. Leaves crushed or paste prepared from the flesh are used as a poultice for abscesses. The Philippines use the warmed leaves for application over the abdomen to relieve indigestion in babies and children. Fruits have anthelmintic properties. The root bark is used in toothache and is placed around the gums to get relief from a toothache, and the roots of the plant are used in the form of a prepared decoction for fever.
Uses
The fruit is edible. Custard apple can be eaten raw or as fresh fruit. It can also be prepared as juices, ice cream. It is cooked into a sauce in India. The leaves are used in tanning and also yield a blue or black dye. The yellow wood is soft, fibrous and durable. It is used to make utensils. Ornaments, hats and wrappers can be made from the inner bark of the tree.
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