Pond apple

• Food: ripe fruit eaten fresh (often sugared as it is slightly astringent), cooked in the Mekong Delta's signature 'canh chua bình bát' sour soup, made into jam or smoothies
• Agriculture: used as a waterlogging-tolerant rootstock for soursop/sugar apple; planted along canals and ponds to check bank erosion
• Folk medicine: in some countries the leaves and seeds are used traditionally (antibacterial, anti-diarrhoeal, insecticidal); contains acetogenins requiring caution
• Landscape & environment: a waterside tree giving shade and shelter for birds and fish; however, it is invasive outside its native range and should be planted with care

Form

Small wetland tree

Product

Edible fruit (fresh, jam, sour soup); light wood; rootstock

Hallmark

Heart-shaped fruit; tolerates flooding and salt

Uses

Food, propagation rootstock, erosion control

Pond apple grows on permanently waterlogged ground: swamps, ponds, canal and riverbanks, estuaries and flooded melaleuca forests, tolerating brackish and salt water and preferring full sun. Native to Florida (the Everglades), the Caribbean, tropical Central–South America and West Africa; introduced and naturalised in parts of Southeast Asia (including southern Vietnam), Sri Lanka, India and eastern Australia, sometimes becoming invasive.

Not individually assessed by IUCN, but widespread in its native range and spreading where introduced; not threatened, regarded as Least Concern (LC). Note: it is treated as invasive in Sri Lanka and Australia. Custard-apple family (Annonaceae), genus Annona.