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Custard Apple

Botanical Name: Annona squamosa

Family Name : Annonaceae

This fruit, native to the Andes, can be oval, cone-shaped, or heart-shaped; it has a thin, inedible skin with markings that resemble large scales. The skin color varies from brownish-red to green, turning to yellow and almost black as the fruit becomes ripe. Its off-white flesh can be separated into sectors, each with its own shiny black seed, may be granular like a pear, and is sweet, juicy, and flavorful. These fruits can weigh anywhere between 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounds (about 227 to 2,040g). This is considered one of the most flavorful of fruits in the world.

Distribution

Custard apple is a large genus, comprising over 70 species of trees and shrubs, distributed in tropical countries. Its five or six species, some of which yield edible fruits. Custard apple trees grow abundantly in coastal and lowland areas throughout South and Central America, Mexico, and Africa; they are also cultivated in California, Spain, Australia, the West Indies, and India. The cherimoya is the most popular variety of the custard apple family. Other varieties, which are seen in markets less frequently, include the soursop, sugar-apple or sweetsop, the West Indian bullock's heart, and the pond apple.

Properties of custard apple

Astringent, tonic, anthelmintic, purgative, diuretic and anticancerous.

Forms of Use :- Fruit, root powder, decoction

Food Value of custard apple

Custard apple has a pleasant flavour. It can be made into drinks, and fermented liquor; The pulp contains:-

The unripe fruit, seed, leaf and root are considered medicinal.

Medicinal Uses & benefits

1. It is found to have anti-cancerous properties against human epidermal cercinoma of the Nasopharynx in tissue culture.
2. Ripe fruit bruised and mixed with salt is applied to malignant tumours to hasten suppuration (pus formation) and healing.
3. The unripe fruit is useful in destroying insects and lices.
4. The fruit seeds are also abortifaciat.
5. It is considered an anti-scorbutic.
6. Fruit seeds were found to have oxytocic and some uterotonic activity.
7. Its powdered seeds give a good hair wash.
8. Unripe fruits are used in diarrhea, dysentery and dyspepsia.
9. Leaf juice, when applied over head, kills lice.
10. Leaf juice is also helpful in hysterical or fainting fits when inhaled.

Other Uses

The leaves have been employed in tanning and they yield a blue or black dye. A fiber derived from the young twigs is superior to the bark fiber from Annona squamosa . Custard apple wood is yellow, rather soft, fibrous but durable, moderately close-grained, with a specific gravity of 0.650. It has been used to make yokes for oxen.