Chrysobalanus icaco L.

Low shrub 1-2 m. high, or prostrate, or a medium-sized tree up to 5-6 m. high, glabrous or essentially so except in the inflorescence and on very young growth, where strigose; bark of the branchlets reddish-brown, smooth except for the very numerous and conspicuous pale lenticels. Leaves varying considerably from one plant to another, elliptic to obovate or stiborbicular, rounded or emarginate at apex or when elliptic narrowed to an obtuse apex, cuneate to acute or rounded at base, up to about 8 cm. long and 6 cm. wide, (1-) 1.5-2 times as long as wide, on stout petioles 2-4 mm. long; blades dark green and lustrous above, dull beneath and usually with a depressed elliptic glandular area about 0.5 mm. long on each side of the midrib at extreme base; small veins prominently reticulate on both sides of the blade, the primary lateral veins mostly 4-6 pairs, straight at base but curving and anastomosing before reaching the margins. Flowers white, in short-peduncled axillary cymes shorter than the leaves (mostly 2-4 cm. long, with 8-20 flowers), the cyme-branches often strongly flattened and 1-1.5 mm. wide, often glabrescent near the base, the tips densely pale-strigose like the hypanthium, the flowers and the tips of the cyme-branches appearing silvery white to the unaided eye; cymes usually naked in anthesis, the ovate, acute, finely glandular-ciliate bracts 1.5-2 mm. long but very soon deciduous; petals 5, glabrous, oblanceolate or spatulate, 3-5 mm. long, 2-3 times as long as wide, the tips rounded, often erose, the bases cuneate; stamens about 20 (up to 30, according to Hooker) in one series, the filaments pale (?white), about 5 mm. long or less, hirsute on the inner surface except on the distal third, the flattened bases coherent a third or half the length of the filaments into a cylinder; anthers about 0.5 mm. long, ?pink or ?purplish; hypanthium campanulate or turbinate, at anthesis about 3 mm. long and wide, the inner surface hairy, the long-hirsute ovary sessile at the bottom of the tube, the filiform style 6-7 mm. long, hirsute except at tip, erect, with a minute terminal stigma; calyx-lobes triangular-ovate, acute or blunt-tipped, heavily pubescent, the margins glandular-ciliate but otherwise entire. Fruit globose or oval, 2-5 cm. long, white to pink or purple, edible, with white juicy insipid flesh, the stone 1-2 cm. long with 5-6 acute longitudinal ribs.

It is a tropical plant. It grows in the hot tropical lowlands. It grows in sandy coastal locations. The soil needs to be very well drained. It can be used to stabilise dunes. It can grow in arid places.

The fruit are normally used for preserves. They are also candied. They can be eaten raw. They are used for jams and jellies. For preserves the fruit is pierced through including the kernel to allow the syrup to penetrate. The seed kernel is roasted and eaten. (The shell is removed)

Plants are grown from seed, cuttings or by layering. Seed can be collected from ripe fruit that are allowed to rot to make it easier to remove the seed. Seed only store for a short time. Fresh seed should be planted. They germinate in 20-25 days. Seedlings can be transplanted into the field in 6-7 days.