SWEET-SOP, or Sugar Apple, botanical name Anona squamosa, a small tree or shrub with thin oblong-ovate leaves, solitary greenish flowers and a yellowish-green fruit, like a shortened pine cone in shape with a tubercle corresponding to each of the carpels from the aggregation of which it has been formed. The fruit is 3 to 4 in. in diameter and contains a sweet creamy-yellow custard-like pulp. It is a native of the West Indies and tropical America; it is much prized as a fruit, and has been widely introduced into the eastern hemisphere.
Another species, A. muricala, is the sour-sop, a small evergreen tree bearing a larger dark-green fruit, 6 to 8 in. long and 1 to 5 lb in weight, oblong or bluntly conical in shape, with a rough spiny skin and containing a soft white juicy subacid pulp with a flavour of turpentine. It is a popular fruit in the West Indies, where it is native, and is grown with special excellence in Porto Rico. A drink is made from the juice. A. reticulata is the custard apple (q.v.) and A. paluslris the alligator apple.