Malay Apple

The Malay apple is much admired for the beauty of the tree, its flowers and its colorful, glistening fruits, without parallel.

The Malay apple tree is rather fast-growing, reaching 40 to 60 ft in height, and has an erect trunk to 15 ft in circumference and a pyramidal or cylindrical crown.

The tree grows vigorously on a range of soil types from sand to heavy clay. It tolerates moderately acid soil, reacts unfavorably to highly alkaline situations. The spring and fall flowering seasons produce the biggest crops. Fruits mature in 60 days from the full opening of the flowers and they fall quickly after they become fully ripe and deteriorate rapidly.

The ripe fruit is eaten raw though many people consider it insipid. It is best stewed with cloves or other flavoring and served with cream as dessert. Asiatic people in Guyana stew the peeled fruit, cooking the skin separately to make a sirup which they add to the cooked fruit. Malayan people may add the petals of the red-flowered hibiscus to make the product more colorful. Malay apples are often cooked with acid fruits to the benefit of both.

They are sometimes made into sauce or preserves. The slightly unripe fruits are used for making jelly and pickles.