The fruit is said to be very large--- often resting on the ground--- and excellent quality. Subtropical scrubland habitat.
This is the first I've heard of synonymy with A. tomentosa.
Officially tomentosa and dioica are 2 different species, not synonyms. Either Helton is mistaken or he knows something we don't?
Hello Oscar
I went to see exactly what Helton wrote on his book about this subject...
The exact words of Helton were : "Eu considero essa espécie uma sinonimia de Annona dioica"... so in English: " I consider this species a synonymy of Annona dioica"
In the book text context Helton puts this observation not as anything truly scientific but just as his personal opinion... and then he justifies his opinion saying that when the botanist "August de Saint-Hilaire" classified this species as "Annona dioica" back in 1820 he just did that because he found plants with fruits and other with none on the same season, so he considered that there should be separate male and female plants... just to clarify, in Portuguese "dioica" means "dioecious"...
Helton later justifies this differences in fruiting by the presence or absence of a particular species of beetle bugs (besouros escarabideos) responsible for the polinization of the flowers...
So apparently there's no scientific background on this observation of Helton... but I also think he his right!... but of course I accept other opinions on this subject...
Just two final thoughts on this subject to all others following this:
1) Being a bushy annona it would be interesting to see if this is one is graft compatible with cherimoya or other more tree like root-stock and see the habit/aspect of the resulting grated tree... probably Adam is the correct person to in-light us all on this...
2) how about if we start a race/contest to see who's the first one to fruit this one outside Brazil?... I seem to have some years ahead of advantage but I also have the latitude handicap on my side...