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Muntingia calabura

Common Name: strawberry tree

Family: Muntingiaceae

Common Synonyms: none

USDA Hardiness Zone: 8a-11b

Growth Habit: Tree

Origin: Mexico, Central and South America

FISC Category: -

FDACS Listed Noxious Weed: No

Introduction Date: Earliest Florida specimen vouchered in 1961

IFAS Assessment:

  • North: Not Assessed
  • Central: Not Assessed
  • South: Not Assessed
Recently rained on white flower with five petals above a leaved branch
Forest and Kim Starr
Red round small fruit under a canopy of leaves
Scott Zona

Description

Small evergreen tree, 3–12 m tall, growing and flowering continuously on fan-like branches; mainline branches becoming erect after leaf fall and so in turn contributing to the formation of the trunk. Branches horizontal, pendant towards the tip, soft-hairy. Leaves simple, ovate-lanceolate, 4–14 x 1–4 cm, with prominently asymmetrical leaf base; leaf margin serrate, lower leaf surface greyish pubescent. Flowers in 1–3(–5)-flowered supra-axillary fascicles, with five white petals; number of stamens increasing from 10–25 in the first emerging flower in the fascicle to more than 100 in the last; late flowers do not normally set fruit. Fruit a dull-red berry, 15 mm in diameter, with several thousand tiny seeds in the soft pulp.

Habitat

Disturbed lowland tropical forests, abandoned pastures, agricultural lands, forest edges, vacant lots, and along roadsides and margins of waterways

Comments

Propagates by seeds, but also by cuttings and suckers

Map of species distribution

Control Methods

  • Manual: Saplings and small plants can be pulled by hand, while larger plants can be uprooted. Tree girdling and stem cutting are not effective.
  • Chemical: Spraying the foliage with 41% glyphosate solution (not recommended due to safety concerns and wide targeting), stem cutting combined with the application of 41% glyphosate solution on the stump sapwood, stem injection with 41% glyphosate solution.
  • Biological: NA

Control Notes

NA

References

Dave's Garden. 2022. Muntingia species, Jamaican cherry. https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/56251/ Accessed April 3, 2022.

CABI. 2017. Invasive Species Compendium. Muntingia calabura. https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/35164 Accessed on April 3, 2022.

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