Lolita

'Lolita' is the dark Surinam cherry that Florida's Top Tropicals nursery has done most to popularise, and probably the easiest named selection for a home grower to actually buy. It is sold as a large-fruited black type that ripens through red to a rich near-black, with the sweetness and clean finish that dark pitangas are grown for and none of the turpentine aftertaste of ordinary hedge seedlings. Sellers report that it is vigorous, upright and freely branching and that plants often flower and fruit in their first year, and that its seedlings come unusually close to type — a genuinely useful trait in a crop where seedling variation is the main obstacle to commercialization. Naming is muddled: Top Tropicals treats 'Lolita' and 'Black Star' as the same clone, seed vendors have sold them separately and described 'Lolita' as slightly less dark than the blackest selections, and at least one reference guide lists 'Lolita' as bright red. Judge the plant by its fruit rather than its tag, but as sold in Florida it is a sweet, dark, precocious selection.