Acca sellowiana

Acca sellowiana, the pineapple guava, is that rare plant handsome enough for the border and generous enough for the kitchen. The shrub came to botanical notice through the German naturalist Friedrich Sellow, who collected in southern Brazil in 1819, and the name honors him still; for years the plant was known, and is often still sold, as Feijoa sellowiana. The true home is the subtropical highlands of southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and northern Argentina, and from there the species has traveled to warm gardens the world over.

This is an evergreen of quiet good looks, with gray-green leaves that flash silver-white undersides in a breeze. In late spring come the flowers, and they are remarkable: thick, fleshy petals, white without and flushed purple within, surrounding a startling boss of long crimson stamens. The petals themselves are edible, sweet and faintly spicy, a treat to graze straight from the bush, and the birds and bees that come for them do the work of pollination. By late autumn the fruit ripens, oval and gray-green, with an aromatic flesh that tastes of pineapple, apple and mint at once, eaten fresh from the skin or made into jam.

The name has moved once and may move again. Otto Berg established the genus Acca in 1856, and the world went on calling the plant Feijoa anyway, after João da Silva Feijó, the Brazilian naturalist who directed the natural history museum at Bahia. The fruit is still sold under that name wherever the crop is grown, and in New Zealand, where feijoa found a second home, the season is a fixture of the autumn calendar.

In the garden the shrub is endlessly useful: an informal evergreen hedge, a screen, a small multi-stemmed specimen, or the backbone of an edible landscape. Drought and coastal wind are taken in stride, and the plant thrives across the warm South and into California, asking only sun and free-draining soil. Site the shrub where the flowers can be reached in late spring, since eating the petals is half the pleasure, and pair with rosemary, pomegranate and other sun-loving company content on the same sharp drainage. For the heaviest fruit set, grow more than one, since most plants crop best with a partner nearby.