GUAVA (from the Mexican guayaba) is the name applied to the fruits of species of Psidium, a genus belonging to the natural order Myrtaceae. The species which produces the bulk of the guava fruits of commerce is Psidium Gτιayava, Radd., a small tree from 15 to 20 feet high, a native of the tropical parts of America and the West Indies. It bears short-stalked egg-shaped or oblong leaves, with strongly marked veins, and covered with a soft tomentum or down. The flowers are borne on axillary stalks, and the fruits vary very much in size, shape, and colour, numerous forms and varieties being known and cultivated. The variety whose fruits are most valued is that which is sometimes called the white guava (P. Guayava, var. pyriferum). The fruits are pear-shaped, about the size of a hen’s egg, covered with a thin bright yellow or whitish skin filled with soft pulp, also of a light yellowish tinge, and having a pleasant sweet-acid and somewhat aromatic flavour. P. Guayava, var. pomiferum, produces a more globular or apple-shaped fruit, sometimes called the red guava. The pulp of this variety is mostly of a darker colour than the former and not of so fine a flavour, therefore the first named is most esteemed for eating in a raw state; both, however, are used in the preparation of two kinds of preserve known as guava jelly and guava cheese, which are made in the West Indies, and imported thence to England; the fruits are of much too perishable a nature to allow of their importation in their natural state. The two varieties here mentioned have been described by some botanists as distinct species. They have both been introduced into various parts of India, as well as in other countries of the East, where they have become perfectly naturalized. Though of course much too tender for ...