:: acca sellowiana ::

    Day 2, January the 2nd, has dawned hazy and grey and already there has been a half-hearted drop of large and lazy rain drops, causing the immediate rousing of self from semi-slumber to grab the washing left out last night on the line.

Next to our classic 'Hill's Hoist' one of these is planted...any guesses on what this little beauty might be?

No, it isn't the famed Pohutukawa or New Zealand Christmas tree - we shall have to wait until late Spring or early Summer for that flower to bloom again.

This is what we in New Zealand call a feijoa flower of the acca sellowiana tree, aka pineapple guava or guavasteen in other parts of the world. Very similar colour to the pohutukawa flowers and from a distance it could trick the eye.

The feijoa hails from South America and does very well in our climate here, needing a decent chilling each Winter in order to fruit, so New Zealand produces lots of feijoa. From March to June, depending on varieties and location, we are blessed with loads of gorgeous green egg-shaped fruits dropping from these trees.

  Inside the feijoa is a delicious gritty pulp with an aroma that really deserves to be called perfume - in a yummy edible sort of way. For me feijoa embody one of those salient experiences of hanging out for and waiting (what seems like an age) for the first fruit, then a frame-by-frame sensation of time slowing down while savouring each aspect of the enjoyment of the very first feijoa - I like them...a LOT!