Purple Forest Guava / Araca-una - Psidium sp.

A hard to find, massively productive guava species thats very well adapted to Florida! 

Like its close cousin the cattley guava, this guava species native to the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil can tolerate colder conditions than true guavas and our mother tree has never experienced any cold damage since we've acquired it over a decade ago, having experienced mid 20s lows in a semi protected location without damage. 

The fruit is generally a sweet/tart flavor with firm flesh- slightly thicker skin allows for highly reduced levels of fruit fly damage (ours grow in close proximity to both types of cattley and in bad fruit fly years when they are infested, the purple forest guava is largely unaffected. This sweet/tart flavor combined with nearly branch breaking levels of productions makes this species one of our favorites for processing into juice, jam/jelly and guava paste. In its native Brazil it has been commercialized as a frozen dessert flavor and wine. Conservatively, this species will fruit in 5-6 years from seed. 

The tree itself is small-medium sized, ours is under 15ft at around 14 years of age. Its pretty rounded leaf dark green foliage and profuse bloom of white flowers, as well as its peeling bark could lend itself in spots where crepe myrtle would be planted in ornamental landscaping. 

Available seedlings are grown in small tree pots and 8-12 inches tall. 

*There's conflicting information on this variety being P.eugeniafolia or P. myrtoides, for the sake of reducing confusion on this issue, we've not labeled as a specifical binomial.