Genip

Genipa americana, the genip, genipap or jagua, is a medium-sized evergreen tree in the family Rubiaceae, native to tropical America from southern Mexico and the Caribbean through Central America to northern Argentina, where it grows in lowland rainforest, gallery forest and seasonally flooded varzea. It typically reaches 8 to 15 metres in height, occasionally to 30 metres, with a straight trunk, smooth grey bark and a rounded crown. The opposite, decussate leaves are clustered toward the branch tips, large, glossy, obovate to oblong, 15 to 35 centimetres long, with prominent venation and short petioles. Fragrant five- to six-lobed funnel-shaped flowers open white or pale yellow and age to deeper yellow, in terminal cymes. The fruit is a thick-walled, ellipsoid to subglobose berry 5 to 12 centimetres long with a leathery, greyish-brown rind, a persistent calyx scar at the apex, and yellowish, aromatic, sweet-acidic pulp enclosing numerous flattened seeds; the unripe fruit yields a clear juice that oxidises to indelible blue-black on the skin.