Annona squamosa is a small, well-branched tree or shrub from the family Annonaceae that bears edible fruits called sugar-apples or . It tolerates a tropical lowland climate better than its relatives Annona reticulata and Annona cherimola (whose fruits often share the same name) helping make it the most widely cultivated of these species. Annona squamosa is a small, semi-(or late) deciduous, much-branched shrub or small tree tall similar to soursop (Annona muricata). Description The fruit of A. squamosa (sugar-apple) has sweet whitish pulp, and is popular in tropical markets. Stems and leaves Branches with light brown bark and visible leaf scars; inner bark light yellow and slightly bitter; twigs become brown with light brown dots (lenticels – small, oval, rounded spots upon the stem or branch of a plant, from which the underlying tissues may protrude or roots may issue). Thin, simple, alternate leaves occur singly, long and wide; rounded at the base and pointed at the tip (oblong-lanceolate). They are pale green on both surfaces and mostly hairless with slight hairs on the underside when young. The sides sometimes are slightly unequal and the leaf edges are without teeth, inconspicuously hairy when young. The leaf stalks are long, green, and sparsely pubescent. Flowers Solitary or in short lateral clusters of 2–4 about long, greenish-yellow flowers on a hairy, slender long stalk. Three green outer petals, purplish at the base, oblong, long, and wide, three inner petals reduced to minute scales or absent. Very numerous stamens; crowded, white, less than long; ovary light green. Styles white, crowded on the raised axis. Each pistil forms a separate tubercle (small rounded wartlike protuberance), mostly long and wide which matures into the aggregate fruit. Flowering occurs in spring-early summer and flowers are pollinated by nitidulid beetles. Its pollen is shed as permanent tetrads. Fruits and reproduction Aggregate and soft fruits form from the numerous and loosely united pistils of a flower which become enlarged and mature into fruits which are distinct from fruits of other species of genus (and more like a giant raspberry instead). The round or heart-shaped greenish yellow, ripened aggregate fruit is pendulous on a thickened stalk; in diameter with many round protuberances and covered with a powdery bloom. Fruits are formed of loosely cohering or almost free carpels (the ripened pistels). The pulp is white tinged yellow, edible and sweetly aromatic. Each carpel containing an oblong, shiny and smooth,