Kawahara

'Kawahara' is Hawai'i's counterpart to Florida's dark Surinam cherry selections — the superior grafted purple-fruited cultivar that island nurserymen introduced, named in the Florida State Horticultural Society account of the crop alongside 'Zill Dark' and 'Black Star'. In Kona the black-fruited Surinam cherry is known locally by this name, and University of Hawai'i CTAHR literature on the fruit uses it the same way. Because Surinam cherry is so hard to graft and will not root from cuttings, 'Kawahara' was never distributed widely, and most Hawai'i plantings remain variable seedlings rather than the clone; the CTAHR and Kona Experiment Station trials that began in 2007 were set up specifically to fix that gap. Dark-fruited Hawaiian material measured around 15 degrees Brix against 13 for red-fruited trees on the same island, which matches the general finding that purple pitangas are sweeter and much less resinous. It is worth knowing about mainly if you garden in Hawai'i, where local grafted material and jam producers keep the name alive.