Please see the attached pictures. This is a nice tropical looking bush that is in our apartment complex. It is an evergreen and being grown in zone 8B but plants recommended in zone 9 also seem to grow here. This is something I'd like to grow when I get a house soon. I took some cuttings but I'm not sure if they will root. Please help me identify the species. Thanks,
Sorry to disagree but looks more like Syzygium sp. there's over 1000 so I won't try guessing which especially with the newer cultivars looking ridiculously similar.. (Okay maybe a Elegance hybrid) see here they have a couple of varieties.. http://www.loganrivertreefarm.com.au/pages/Plant 14.html
I'd say Syzygium of some sort as well, but I'm not as confident about cultivars as Chungii is... If we're right, when it blooms it will have filamentous flowers.
I was just taking a wild guess it looks by leaf and compact growth to be one of the smaller cultivars, Elegance is just one of (too) many cultivars recently released. There are a few now I've seen and wondered why release yet another one that's so similar? The tags heights here are often very off too, at least when grown here (Tiny Trev an earlier release was to go approx 50 cm I've seen them around 2m and even some like Aussie Southern to 2m will grow at least 4-5m and so on). The fruit is edible but they haven't been grown for that purpose so it tases rather tart. There are actually some species with really nice sweet, fruit and I do have one Syzygium reinwardtiana syn Eugenia as a fruit tree. That being said though they make excellent topiary and hedge plants, I have a few at home for that purpose also:}
See, and in South America they're grown exclusively for the fruit - primarily S. jambos, which can get quite tall if it's not controlled.
Interesting to know, I've seen the jambos fruit but never tried it other than the one I mentioned mine don't set fruit because I'm pretty regularly pruning them to shape. They are extremely popular here as a hedging plant and as you mentioned pick the wrong one and the hedge may well end up blocking off a lot more than expected... I worked in a palm nursery and the owner had a S. oleosum which is a bigger tree and a smaller cultivar which he kept wondering what was wrong with it and why it never got as big as the other. He was brilliant with palms but other plant i.d. and knowledge was a little off :}
You should give it a taste next time you have the chance - the fruit tastes like an apple flavoured with rosewater, kind of like firm Turkish Delight.