Hawaiian Queen

'Hawaiian Queen' is one of the named Hawaiian acerola clones maintained by USDA-ARS at the Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, where it is held as accession HMAL 2 in the field collection of Malpighia. It belongs to the sweet group of acerolas along with 'Manoa Sweet' and 'Tropical Ruby', in contrast to the acid group represented by 'B-17' and 'Red Jumbo'. The sweet Hawaiian clones were selected during the mid-century Hawaiian acerola work aimed at giving home gardeners fruit that could be eaten fresh rather than only processed for vitamin C. It appears in the California Rare Fruit Growers cultivar list but CRFG notes it is not often encountered in Southern California. Today it is chiefly a collection and rare-fruit cultivar rather than a commercial one.