New Fruit Reports! Ugni molinae, Luma apiculata, and Psidium longipetiolatum

[elouicious]

I am getting the lay of the land here and doing my best to find some good foraging/scavenging spots. (while never taking from peoples yards!) As well as checking out a few of the local farmers markets.

In a trip to San Francisco Botanic Garden I was able to find Ugni molinae (Right) and Luma apiculata (Left)




I took a picture of the Luma tree but forgot to get one of the Ugni bush-



The Luma taste like blueberries on the interior and quite good- the skin has a licorice flavor that I am fond of but some people might not like.

Have you ever wondered where the "skittles" flavor comes from? It's this fruit- they are very tasty, only problem with both of these is that they are small.

I was wandering around a farmers market when I spotted a little stand that had just 3 baskets of "Cherry Guavas" left, I happily grabbed one for $5 and can check Psidium longipetiolatum off the list now



These are delicious and might represent the best alternative to cherries in subtropical climates. I didnt get much guava flavor from them at all.

[Pokeweed]

I tried luma apiculata, but they don't like the heat down here. Glad to hear about mountain guava. They do fine here. Your adventure  continues! D

[Bush2Beach]

That must be Psidium cattleyanum.
P. Longipetolatum is a collectors item that to my knowledge is just getting fruiting from Marcos seeds that have been available the last 5 years or so.

[daisyguy]

I tried luma apiculata, but they don't like the heat down here. Glad to hear about mountain guava. They do fine here. Your adventure  continues! D

Same for North/Central Florida. I have Ugni and it's struggled, and the Luma is basically dead. Lots of dieback, even when restricted to morning sun. I wish I had known.

[elouicious]

I tried luma apiculata, but they don't like the heat down here. Glad to hear about mountain guava. They do fine here. Your adventure  continues! D

Same for North/Central Florida. I have Ugni and it's struggled, and the Luma is basically dead. Lots of dieback, even when restricted to morning sun. I wish I had known.

NissanVersa and I have planted probably 20 trees between the two of us and they always languish and die- Might try an experiment from seed to see if we can get some more heat/humidity tolerant vars going

That must be Psidium cattleyanum.
P. Longipetolatum is a collectors item that to my knowledge is just getting fruiting from Marcos seeds that have been available the last 5 years or so.

Hmm I was under the impression that those were still called strawberry guava, and the fruit of those were larger than the ones seen here. Unfortunately I haven't tried cattleyanum so I can't say for certain, but I can say people like wanderlust nursery already have seedlings for sale so I was under the impression they were more common.

I have a few trees back in TX and can compare with some of the seedlings from this round

[socalbalcony2]

Those are definitely your plain old strawberry guavas.

[Bush2Beach]

I’d bet wanderlust is selling seedlings of petiolatum from marcos’s seeds.
Cattleyanum can get nice and big.

[NissanVersa]

Great write up!

Can confirm on ugni not growing well on the gulf coast. I think its just too hot for them here.

[K-Rimes]

Cattleyanum can get nice and big.

I had a MONSTER strawb guava this morning. I topped my tree and the fruit is obscenely big this year compared to last.

You headed down past Santa Barbara Elouicious? Drop on by if so.

[HibachiDrama]

I've been trying ugni in NE FL for 3 years and had 5+ 1-3g of different varieties die, countless seedlings, and my last 1g seedling just died under my ice cream bean. There are some scientific papers out there about it preferring shade/ceasing photosynthesis in high light intensity, but regarding heat, I wonder if growers in the Pacific NW could chime in on how the last two heatwaves impacted their plants.

[Epicatt2]

Tried Ugni twice: Once from a popular Calif. nursery and the second time from a nursery in N. Carolina.

Out of 5 plants I got from Cal. and the 3 from N. Carolina none of them survived very long here in Tampa.

So now I am wondering whether there are any cultivars of Ugni molinæ that exhibit any warmth tolerance.  Or if we could get this species to survive here in our hot and wet Florida summers by providing it with shade or maybe by modifying the pH of the soil it likes to grow in, or perhaps it's the type of soil it likes to grow in that's the trick to making it happy.

Any suggestions welcomed!

Paul M.
Tampa — Zone 9b
==

[Bush2Beach]

Do you really love the fruit that much?
Its a cute ornamental that makes fruit sometimes or often never.
Been growing it 10 years in good coastal CA conditions and very few and very small fruits.
Just grow more Poha and call it a day or something else that fruits much better.

[elouicious]

Cattleyanum can get nice and big.

I had a MONSTER strawb guava this morning. I topped my tree and the fruit is obscenely big this year compared to last.

You headed down past Santa Barbara Elouicious? Drop on by if so.

Definitely planning on a trip down the coast at some point to see you fine folks- I will send a PM when something is concrete

Do you really love the fruit that much?
Its a cute ornamental that makes fruit sometimes or often never.
Been growing it 10 years in good coastal CA conditions and very few and very small fruits.
Just grow more Poha and call it a day or something else that fruits much better.

I think they are quite good- only shortcoming is that they are small and you want a handful for a good mouth of flavor. Bummer it hasnt produced for you- I will admit the one at SFBG is completely in the shade of some large palms and tucked away where it probably doesnt get much heat for even here. The bush was LOADED with fruit though- seriously what i took was maybe 1/100th of what was on there and there were 2 bushes

[Bush2Beach]

Thats true. They are kinda like spicy little blueberries from what I remember.
One cool thing is you’ll see ugni and luma planted in other random parts of gg park. The arboretum nursery is fairly prolific

[elouicious]

Thats true. They are kinda like spicy little blueberries from what I remember.
One cool thing is you’ll see ugni and luma planted in other random parts of gg park. The arboretum nursery is fairly prolific

Thats really cool, I havent done much exploring of the park yet but in my wanderings yesterday I managed to come across a fruiting Syzygium paniculatum which was quite good, I will do a fruit write up of that and Acca sellowiana soon.

On another note- I went back to the farmers market this weekend and found the "cherry guava" for sale right next to some yellow "cherry guava" which all but confirms that they care cattleyanum to me-

The disappointment is real, but I did get way more of a cherry flavor than strawberry flavor from them which is the common name for cattleyanum I am familiar with does anyone know if the red ones taste different than the yellow?

Looks like I'll have to wait until mine hopefully produce to taste longipetiolatum

[K-Rimes]

Red and yellow do taste different, imo. I find the yellow more tart and a really good strawberry guava really does get some strawberry hints to it - but they need to be dead ripe falling off the tree nearly black for that, in my experience.

I am always on the fence which one I prefer.