Reproductive parts of Custard Apple

Reproductive parts of Custard Apple

Custard apple (Annona squamosa) the popular arid zone fruit, otherwise known as “the fruit of poor people”/ Sugar appple, Sweet sop, Buah nona etc., is appreciated by the consumers due to the delicate and sweet test. Custard apple (Annona squmosa) belongs to the family annonaceae having chromosome number 2n=14.  Its centre of origin is tropical America and popularly known as Sita phal, Ram phal, Sugar apple etc. depending on the species cultivated.

Plants are shrubs or small trees growing up to 5 to 6 m. The leaves are alternate simple and entire. Flowers are born either singly or in small groups, yellowish green in colour and hermaphrodite and protogynous (A. muricata is an exception i.e., protoandrous) in nature. The calyx is very small, often  not visible. But corolla is very much fleshy with cream coloration in the inside and light green outside.

Custard apple has auxillary bearing habit. Fruits are heart shaped, fleshy syncarp formed by the fusion of the pistils and receptacle, pericarp is the edible part. Pollination is mainly by insects i.e. cross-pollination.

Though there is heavy flowering in custard apple, poor fruit setting might be a result of improper orientation and structure of the flower. This results in failure of pollination and subsequent process in fruit formation.