Custard Apple

Custard Apple, the name commonly given in the West Indies and other tropical countries to the fruits of certain species of Anona (order Anonaceæ, allied to Ranunculaceæ). Some of the fruits of this genus are among the most delicious produced in tropical countries, as the Cherimoya (A. cherimolia), and even the Common Custard Apple (A. squamosa or reticulata), which is a native of America, but is now very common throughout the East Indies. It is a large, greenish, or dark-brown, roundish fruit, sometimes from its size and appearance called Bullock's Heart in the West Indies; the tree is of considerable size. Some other American species and varieties are sometimes called custard apples, and two or three which are natives of Western Africa. A. muricata, the sour-sop, A. (Asimina) triloba, the pappaw-tree of the warmer parts of North America, and A. palustris, the dog or alligator apple of the West Indies, may also be mentioned. A. laurifolia grows in Florida and the West Indies; its large fruit is hardly eatable.