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Ripe cherimoya fruits See also: Annona cherimola The Cherimoya is the fruit of the species Annona cherimola, which is native to the Andes.[1] Today they are grown throughout South and Central America.
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[edit] Description
Cherimoya is a deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub or small tree reaching 7 m (22 feet) tall. The leaves are alternate, simple, oblong-lanceolate, 715 cm long and 610 cm broad. The flowers are produced in small clusters, each flower 23 cm across, with six petals, yellow-brown, often spotted purple at the base. The fruit is oval, often slightly oblate, 1020 cm long and 710 cm diameter, with a smooth or slightly tuberculated skin. The fruit flesh is white and creamy, and has numerous dark brown seeds embedded in it. Mark Twain called the cherimoya "the most delicious fruit known to men."[2] The fruit is fleshy and soft, sweet, white in color, with a sherbet-like texture, which gives it its secondary name, custard apple.
Some characterize the flavor as a blend of banana, pineapple, papaya, peach, and strawberry. Others describe it as tasting like commercial bubblegum. Similar in size to a grapefruit, it has large, glossy, dark seeds that are easily removed. When ripe, the skin is green and gives slightly to pressure, similar to the avocado.
[edit] Etymology
The name originates from the Quechua word chirimuya, which means "cold seeds," because the plant grows at high altitudes and the seeds will germinate at higher altitudes.[citation needed]. In Bogot, Colombia, the fruit is commonly known as chirimoya, a mixture of the modern and Quechua names.
Cherimoya seeds Large fruit which are uniformly green, without cracks or mostly browned skin, are best. Unripe cherimoyas will ripen at room temperature, when they will yield to gentle pressure. Ripe fruits keep better in the refrigerator.
Different varieties have different flavors, textures, and shapes. Shapes can range from imprint areoles, flat areoles, slight bump or point areoles, full areoles, and combinations of these shapes. The flavor of the flesh ranges from mellow sweet to tangy or acidic sweet, with variable suggestions of pineapple, banana, pear, papaya, strawberry or other berry, and apple, depending on the variety. The usual characterization of flavor is "pineapple/banana" flavor[citation needed], similar to the flavor of the Monstera deliciosa fruit.
Cherimoya sprouts emerging When the fruit is soft-ripe/fresh-ripe and still has the fresh, fully mature greenish/greenishyellowish skin color, the texture is like that of a soft-ripe pear and papaya. If the skin is allowed to turn fully brown, yet the flesh has not fermented or gone "bad", then the texture can be custard-like. Often, when the skin turns brown at room temperature, the fruit is no longer good for human consumption. Also, the skin turns brown if it has been under normal refrigeration for too long - a day or two maybe. Fresh cherimoya contains about 15% sugar (about 60kcal/100g) and some vitamin C (up to 20 mg/100g). Cherimoya and other members of the Annonaceae family also contain small amounts of neurotoxic alkaloids, such as annonacin, which appear to be linked to atypical Parkinsonism in Guadeloupe.[6] The seeds are poisonous if crushed open.[7] An extractive of the bark can induce paralysis if injected.[7]
[edit] Pollination
The flowers are hermaphroditic and have a mechanism to avoid self pollination. The short-lived flowers open as female, then progress to a later, male stage in a matter of hours. This requires a separate pollinator that not only can collect the pollen from flowers in the male stage, but also deposit it in flowers in the female stage. It is acknowledged that there must be such a natural pollinator, and while so far studies of insects in the cherimoya's native region have been inconclusive, some form of beetle is suspected (Schroeder 1995). Quite often, the female flower is receptive in the early part of the first day, but pollen is not produced in the male stage until the late afternoon of the second day. Honey bees are not good pollinators, for example, because their bodies are too large to fit between the fleshy petals of the female flower. Female flowers have the petals only partially separated, and the petals separate wide when they become male flowers. So the bees pick up pollen from the male flowers, but are
unable to transfer this pollen to the female flowers. The small beetles which pollinate cherimoya in its land of origin are much smaller than bees. For fruit production outside the cherimoya's native region, cultivators must either rely upon the wind to spread pollen in dense orchards or else pollinate flowers by hand. Complicating matters is the notoriously short lifespan of cherimoya pollen.
Split
Tree
Cherimoya-shaped bottle made by the Cupisnique culture around 1000 to 700 BCE
Atemoya (a cross of A. squamosa and A. cherimola) Custard-apple (Annona reticulata) Pawpaw (Asimina spp.) Sugar-apple (Annona squamosa) Soursop (Annona muricata) Wild Soursop (Annona senegalensis)
[edit] References
1. ^ Lost crops of the Incas, By National Research Council (U.S.). Advisory Committee on
Technology Innovation, (National Academy Press, Washington D.C., 1989) Page 229, http://books.google.com/books? id=iT0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA229&dq=cherimoya+native+to&hl=en&ei=k4iQTpiZHsn0 0gG5xbVT&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=on epage&q=cherimoya%20native%20to&f=false
2. ^ The Sacramento Daily Union, October 25, 1866. 3. ^ Berrin, Katherine & Larco Museum. The Spirit of Ancient Peru:Treasures from the
Museo Arqueolgico Rafael Larco Herrera. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
4. ^ "... los indgenas del altiplano andino dicen que aunque la chirimoya no soporta la
Champy P, et al., Quantification of acetogenins in Annona muricata linked to atypical parkinsonism in guadeloupe, Mov Disord. 2005 Dec;20(12):1629-33. PMID 16078200 Caparros-Lefebvre D, Elbaz A., Possible relation of atypical parkinsonism in the French West Indies with consumption of tropical plants: a case-control study. Caribbean Parkinsonism Study Group, Lancet. July 24, 1999;354(9175):281-6. PMID 10440304 Please see Pimenta et al., 2003 for information about toxicity.
CHERLA Research Project (EU). Promotion of Sustainable Cherimoya Production Systems in Latin America through the Characterisation, Conservation and Use of Local Germplasm Diversity. Schroeder, C. A. (1995). Pollination Strategy in the Cherimoya. Cherimoya website Owens, K. J.(2003). Genetic diversity of Annona cherimola Mill. in south central Bolivia. Scheldeman, X. (2002). Distribution and potential of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.) and highland papayas (Vasconcellea spp.) in Ecuador Bridg, Hannia: Micropropagation and Determination of the in vitro Stability of Annona cherimola Mill. and Annona muricata L. Postharvest Technology Cherimoya Produce Facts
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