(a) IDENTIFICATION
Local
name: Igbo: gova
Common
name: Guava
Botanical
name: Psidum guajava
Family:
Myrtaceac
Habitat:
It is a cultivated plant but may be found in forest due to dispersal.
(b) MORPHOLOGY
Habit:
this is a widely spread evergreen tree of about 30-40metres
and about 70m in
diameter.
The inner bark is brown and slightly bitter, young
twigs are four angled and slightly thickened and leathery with edges a little
turned shiny almost hairless at maturity with many parallel lateral veins
raised.
Flowers: The
flowers are fragrant and scattered on stalks at the base of the leaf. The green
fine haring tubular base (Hypathium) are broad enclosed the ovary and bears the
other parts. Fruits are berries, flowering and fruiting nearly throughout the
year. The fruits are rich a vitamin C.
(c) UTILIZATION
Psidum guajava
is combined with mango and pawpaw leaves, the infusion is taken by patients and
is used in curing malaria. The fruit of the plant with rhizome of imperate cylindrical and some fruits of
banana into a container which has some quality of wine in it. The infusion is
taken by patient to cure venereal diseases.
CONSERVATION
It is a cultivated plant but may found in the
forest to dispersal
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