guava
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guava
(gwä`və), small evergreen tree or shrub of the genus Psidium of the family Myrtaceae (myrtlemyrtle,common name for the Myrtaceae, a family of shrubs and trees almost entirely of tropical regions, especially in America and Australia. The family is characterized by leaves (usually evergreen) containing aromatic volatile oils. Many have showy blossoms.
..... Click the link for more information. family), native to tropical America and grown elsewhere for its ornamental flowers and edible fruit. The fruit (a fleshy berry with many hard seeds) of the common tropical guava (P. guajava) is shaped like an apple or a pear and has white, pink, or red flesh (depending on the variety) with a sweet, musky flavor and, usually, a yellow rind. The strawberry guava (P. cattleyanum), native to Brazil, bears a red fruit with a rough rind and reddish pulp, supposedly strawberrylike in flavor. At the time of the Spanish explorations the guava was found from Peru to Mexico; in the United States it is now grown commercially in Florida and California, where it has also escaped cultivation and become naturalized. Much of the perishable fruit is made into jellies, beverages, and similar products. It is a rich source of minerals and of vitamins A and C. Guava is classified in the division MagnoliophytaMagnoliophyta
, division of the plant kingdom consisting of those organisms commonly called the flowering plants, or angiosperms. The angiosperms have leaves, stems, and roots, and vascular, or conducting, tissue (xylem and phloem).
..... Click the link for more information. , class Magnoliopsida, order Myrtales, family Myrtaceae.
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Guava
(Psidium guajava), an evergreen tree of the family Myrtaceae, usually 4–5 m tall (sometimes up to 10 m). It grows wild in tropical America and is grown in all tropical countries. The sour-sweet, aromatic, juicy fruit of the guava has great nutritional value, containing up to 11 percent sugar, about 0.7 percent fat, and about 0.7 percent protein. There are many cultivated varieties of guava. In the USSR there are guava trees in planting collections along the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.
REFERENCE
Siniagin, I. I. Tropicheskoe zemledelie. Moscow, 1968.The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
guava
[′gwäv·ə] (botany)
Psidium guajava. A shrub or low tree of tropical America belonging to the family Myrtaceae; produces an edible, aromatic, sweet, juicy berry.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
guava
1. any of various tropical American trees of the myrtaceous genus Psidium, esp P. guajava, grown in tropical regions for their edible fruit
2. the fruit of such a tree, having yellow skin and pink pulp: used to make jellies, jams, etc.
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005