Guava

Guavas are plants in the myrtle family (Myrtaceae) genus Psidium (meaning "pomegranate" in Latin), which contains about 100 species of tropical shrubs and small trees. They are native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. Guavas are now cultivated and naturalized throughout the tropics and subtropics in Southeast Asia, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Florida and Africa.

The term "guava" appears to derive from Arawak guayabo "guava tree", via the Spanish guayaba. It has been adapted in many European languages: guava (Romanian, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, also Greek Γκουάβα and Russian Гуава), Guave (Dutch and German), goyave (French), gujawa (Polish), goiaba (Portuguese).

Outside of Europe, the Arabic jwafa, the Japanese guaba (グアバ), the Tamil "koiyaa" (கொய்யா), the Tongan kuava and probably also the Tagalog bayabas are ultimately derived from the Arawak term.

Another term for guavas is pera or variants thereof. It is common around the western Indian Ocean and probably derives from Spanish or Portuguese, which means "pear", or from some language of southern India, though it is so widespread in the region that its origin cannot be clearly discerned any more. Pera itself is used in Malayalam, Sinhala and Swahili. In Marathi it is peru, in Bengali pearah (পেয়ারা), in Kannada it is pearaley, ('ಪೇರಲೆ') and in Dhivehi feyru. In Telugu language it is "Jama kaya".

Additional terms for guavas from their native range are, for example, sawintu (Quechua) and xālxocotl (Nāhuatl)