gabiroba

Survives zone 8 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Yellow aromatic fruit, sweet-tart — close to C. adamantium in use; juice and jam. Care: Winter protection — mulch, fleece, or a warm wall.

Hardiness

Zone 8–9

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer

Mature size

Shrub 1–3 m; containerable

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

5.5–7.0 (acid–neutral; dislikes chalk)

Environment

Cerrado

Native range

Cerrado of central and south-eastern Brazil, largely overlapping C. adamantium

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

3–4 yrs

Growth speed

Slow

Spacing

150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Simple, short-petioled, obovate to lance-shaped with an acuminate tip and prominent veins beneath — velvety-hairy when young, becoming smoother with age. The persistent softer pubescence is what separates it from C. adamantium in the field.

Root system

Deep-rooted with a woody underground xylopodium, as in the rest of the cerrado Campomanesia — fire- and drought-resilient once established, poor at being moved.

Fruit description

Rounded fleshy berry, yellow to orange when fully ripe, juicy and sweet-tart with the resinous guava aroma of the genus. Ripens September–October in habitat (spring in the southern hemisphere).

Propagation

Seed sown fresh after fermenting and washing off the pulp; viability falls quickly in storage. Vegetative propagation is unreliable.

Pollination

Self-fertile but distinctly better cross-pollinated — unlike its close relative C. adamantium, selfing does set fruit and viable seed, but controlled-pollination work found selfed seedlings weaker and markedly more likely to die in both lab and nursery. Bee-pollinated, occasionally by flies. Plant two.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.