From Common Forest Trees of Hawaii

Rose-apple
Syzygium jambos
Eucalyptus-Like family (Myrtaceae)

Post-Cook introduction

Naturalized tree with handsome foliage and edible distinguished by paired shiny dark green lance-shaped leaves, few large yellowish white four-petaled flowers 3–4 inches (7.5–1 0 ) across numerous threadlike and pale yellowish or pinkish tinged, rounded or elliptical 1 1⁄4–1 1⁄2 inches (3–4 ) long, with odor and flavor like rose perfume.


©2007 Forest And Kim Starr
Small tree 15–30 ft (4.6–9 ) tall, often with several crooked trunks 4–8 inches (0. 1 –0.2 ) in diameter, and spreading a dense opaque dark green of many branches. Bark brown, smoothish with many small fissures. Inner bark whitish or light brown, astringent. Twigs green when young, becoming dark brown, hairless.

Leaves hairless, with short leaf-stalks of 3⁄16–3⁄8 inch (5–10 ). Blades lance-shaped, 3 1⁄2–8 inches (9–20 ) long and 5⁄8–1 3⁄4 inches (1.5–4.5 ) broad, long-pointed at short-pointed at base, not on edges, leathery, shiny dark green on upper surface, dull green beneath, and with tiny -dots visible under a lens.

Flower clusters () commonly with 4–5 large flowers. Conical pinkish green tubular base () about 1⁄2 inch (13 ) high and wide, enclosing and bearing other parts; of four rounded broad 1⁄2 inch (13 ) long, on four rounded concave whitish petals about 5⁄8 inch (15 ) long, faintly tinged with green, coarsely -dotted; numerous threadlike and consisting of inferior two-celled and whitish slender 1 3⁄4 inches (4.5 ) long.

(berries) have four at pale yellow firm flesh with little juice. Seed single (sometimes two) rounded brown, 3⁄8 inch (1 ) diameter in large cavity.

Wood dull brown, hard, and heavy ( gr. 0.7). Not durable in soil and very susceptible to attack by drywood termites. Seldom used. Elsewhere, coarse baskets and barrel hoops have been made from young branches and poles from larger limbs.

Planted in the tropics for ornament, primarily for the showy flowers and handsome foliage. Sometimes used for windbreaks and shade. Occasionally, the insipid are made into jellies, preserves, and salads; it is a good honey plant. Elsewhere seeds and roots are utilized in home remedies. Trees reproduce naturally from seeds and sprout vigorously when cut. Shade beneath pure thickets generally kills out all vegetation.

Planted and sparsely naturalized through the Hawaiian Islands in moist areas such as pastures, waste places, and stream banks, from sea level to 1600 ft (488 ), rarely to 4000 ft (1,219 ) altitude. Usually found as an understory tree in mixture with guava (Psidium guajava). Classed as a weed.

Special areas
Waimea Arboretum, Tantalus

Range
Native of southeastern tropical Asia but now widely cultivated and naturalized through the tropics, including Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. Planted also in Florida and southern California. Introduced into Hawaii about 1825, apparently for the edible though insipid aromatic

Other common name
pomarrosa (Puerto Rico, Spanish); youenwai (Pohnpei)

Botanical
Jambosa jambos (L.) Millsp., Eugenia jambos L.

An evergreen tree retains a large portion of its green leaves all year.

cm -- A centimeter which is about 0.4 inches.

m -- A meter is about 10% larger than a yard.

Glands are plant structures that secrete liquids, salts or other substances. Glands often appear as hairs with a drop of liquid at the end.

corymb -- a much-branched inflorescence with the lower flowers having long stems.

style -- This is a long and thread-like structure that connects the stigma with the ovary. A flower may have a single style, or several of them.

The apex is the tip or the furthest point from the attachment.

terminal -- Located at the end (the tip or the apex).

Like the teeth on a saw, leaves and other surfaces can have toothed edges.

A pistil is the female structure of many flowers. It contains one or more carpels. Each carpel contins an ovary, style and stigma. The stigma receives the pollen which grows thru the style to reach the ovary.

stamen -- the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower; The stamen consists of an anther supported by a filament.

In an opposite leaf arrangement the leaves come in pairs with one leaf on each side of a stem.

lobe -- Rounded parts of a leaf (or other organ). Lobes bulge out about 1/4 of the leaf diameter.

calyx -- the sepals of a flower, typically forming a whorl that encloses the petals and forms a protective layer around a flower in bud.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

An ovary is a part of the female reproductive organ of the flower. Above the ovary is the style and the stigma, which is where the pollen lands and germinates to grow down through the style to the ovary.

synonym -- In botany a synonym is a species name that at one time was thought to be the correct name for a plant but was later found to be incorrect and has been replaced by a new name.

The hypanthium or floral cup is a cup-like structure formed by the fused bases of the stamens, petals, and sepals.

mm -- millimeter. About 1/25th of an inch.

sp. -- The abbreviation for "species". The plural is "spp". When used it sometimes means that the exact species is unknown. For example, "Aster sp" would mean some species within the Aster genus but the writer may not know exactly which species.

persistent -- When the leaves of a plant fail to fall off in the fall they are persistent. Flowers that stay around after fruiting would be persistent.

canopy -- The foliage of a tree; the crown. Also the upper layer of a forest.