[2] The tree is native to Florida in the United States, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and West Africa.

Compared to the pale yellow or cream color of the petals, the inner base of the A. glabra flower is a bright red.

In the past, the seeds were crushed and cooked in coconut oil and applied to hair to get rid of lice [10] The flesh is sweet-scented and agreeable in flavor, but it has never attained general popular use unlike soursop and other related fruits.

[11] It is a very troublesome invasive species in northern Queensland in Australia and Sri Lanka, where it grows in estuaries and chokes mangrove swamps.

[13] This can be observed in the case of Australia’s Eubenangee Swamp National Park where an outbreak occurred due to poor wetland management.

Seeds of the fruit have been found in cassowary dung with dispersal distances of up to 5212 m recorded in one 2008 study in the journal Diversity and Distributions.

Additionally, part of the government’s recovery plan includes actions towards establishing nurseries filled with plants that the cassowary consumes.

[16] Additionally, the A. glabra was considered the highest ranked species in 2003 in a Wet Tropics bioregion weed risk assessment.

[12] In Sri Lanka it was introduced as a grafting stock for custard apples and spread into wetlands around Colombo.

The plan includes six steps that property owners can take to determine how to control and monitor an outbreak of A. glabra as well as how to minimize financial damage.

Without studies, any actions taken to eliminate the A. glabra with biological controls could inadvertently affect native Australian apple species that belong to the same family.