Jon's user name on this and other forums is "pitangadiego".  Some people are unfamiliar with the pitanga fruit which Jon has as part of his user name.  I've been growing this shrub/tree for about five years and finally have a pretty decent crop this year.  Fruit needs to literally fall off the branch when touched so that it is aedquately sweet.

Jon grows at least one black fruited version and he gave me a seedling tree several years ago.  This is a grafted 'Vermillion' which I bought from Montoso Gardens in Puerto Rico.

 

We had  a yellow fruit one back home when I was a child (Brazil). We also call them Pitanga .

Nice fruit Harvey. One of my favorite.

Interesting. Hard for me to tell in the photo, are they pumpkin shaped?

Yes, they do look like tiny pumpkins and they have one seed about the size of a cherry pit.

I got some seedlings from Hershell of the red color and Nate sent me some black (Lolita) seeds from Hawaii that just sprouted last week.  I tried to find a grafted Lolita but had no look yet.

I have a couple red seedlings I got from Roger Meyer that have only produced a few [delicious!] fruits so far. I have been planting some of the seeds and have half a dozen new seedlings started. I have only tasted fruit from seedlings and they all taste good to me. I would like to try some well known varieties such as Lolita, but it seems to me that most seedlings produce decent fruit. If not, graft.

This may have been answered elsewhere, but how do these taste?

Harvey , nice shrub. To me, I like this thread because you explained Jon's screen name. Every time I see it I try to decipher and give up after a moment or two. I always end up thinking it was some sort of play on Brangellina and San Diego. :)

Grasa, you probably didn't have the surinam cherry, but Eugenia Neonitida--pitangatuba which is also an nice kiddy fruit and many prefer that fruit.

Donna, they taste vaguely plummy with a resinous taste from the skin.  Not too too much like cherries, any more than Eleaganus sp. are like cherries.  The better ones are sweeter and more cherry-like, with less resin.

There are superior strains of pitangas, especially black ones from Florida.

Harvey, I find my potted S. cherry ridiculously thirsty, so it's with some amusement that you have that going where you are, 'though if it's in the ground, it's probably more okay.

I have some growing. They seem very hardy. I tried the black one in Hawaii and after tasting, I'm going to get rid of mine. Don't care for the taste.

Can't really describe the flavor. The flesh is one component, and the skin is another component. The flesh is generally sweet and flavorful, and may have a spice flavor. The peel often has a more acidic component. Some seedlings have a strong essence/taste of the smell of the plant's leaves, and others don't. Seedlings are quite variable, but more are acceptable and some are vary good. In my experience the darker ones are more full flavored, and the orange and red ones are more bland, but but always.

Have had a couple "named" varieties over the years, but they were more bland to insipid, to my taste, though they had larger fruit.

The are harvested by "touch-picking": you gently push up on them with your palm, and if ripe, they will fall off into your have. If you have to tug on them, they are not ripe.

Latin name is Eugenia uniflora, which makes them related to the Eugenias often used for hedges, and which became less popular after the arrival of a psyllid a few years ago that made the leaves distorted.

 

 

These are about the size of a nickel or a dime. The shape is ribbed, similar to the "bubble lamps" of the 60s.

Jon did a good job describing flavor.  My favorite so far was one tasted at Ben Poirier's in Fallbrook (north of San Diego) which he called Black Beauty.  But Jon's black one was nice also.  I wrote Ben at least once asking him about tree availability but never got a reply.  Paul (cyberfarmer) - maybe you can drop by and visit Ben and if he has a grafted Black Beauty, please pick it up for me.  We can figure something out! :)  Wills, I was thinking maybe I saw something once that said Ben also had Lolita.  Ben is listed at http://www.crfg.org/nurlist.html

I am sometimes impatient and tug gently on my Vermillion fruit and most of the time they are still "okay" but they are definitely better if the fall freely when bumped like Jon says.

My tree is in the ground and getting much more water this year (replaced a dripper with an emitter that puts out more water in streams).  This seems to have made a big difference with fruit ripening faster.

@Harvey, I did contact Ben a few months ago. He had some black pitangas to sell, but he was busy that week and I was supposed to call back a week later, but never did. I need to call him. He has a lot of stuff I want.

Ben has a great place to visit.  We corresponded via email in 2007 and a friend from Puerto Rico and I visited him in early December 2007 and was very impressed with his collection.  I ran into him again a few years ago at the late Bob Chamber's white sapote groves and he remembered me so it's somewhat surprising that he didn't reply to emails.  Maybe he is just slowing down his nursery business.  Oh, I believe he had a bunch of airlayers set on a tree at George Emerich's place when I visited there once as well.  Paul, do you know how George is doing?  He's maybe the last remaining old timer of CRFG.

Someone had spoken to him and had told him that currently he had no grafted Lolitas so I stopped pursuing it at that point.  Finding the grafted Lolita has so far been a difficult task.  I hope at some point to at least find scion wood from a superior cultivar and graft it to mine or to Hershells as he has a huge plant. 

Adam in Florida has a pretty good red one, he claims.  He is a jaboticaba expert as well.  He's on the tropical fruit forum.