The origin of S.cumini (jamun) is India or the East Indies (Singh. 1969). It is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical parts of India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and Philippines. In India, jamun trees are found scattered throughout the tropical and subtropical regions including in the lower range of the Himalayas with 1,300 meters and in the Kumaon hills up to 1,600 meters.

Rose apple is indigenous in Malay Archipelago ad Myanmar, though it is grown in many tropical and subtropical countries in Asia. Malayan rose apple is also found indigenous in Malay Archipelago, and was cultivated in East Asia (Bose et al., 1999).

There are three types of jamun cultivars identified and the most common jamun cultivar grown under North Indian is Ra Jamun. The trees produce big sized, oblong fruits with length 2.5-3.5 cm and diameter 1.5-2.0 cm. The fruits are deep purple in color at full ripe stage and the pulp of ripe fruits is purple pink, it tastes juicy and sweet. It has a small stone and it ripens in the month of June to July.

Another late maturing cultivar produces a smaller sized (length 1.5-2.0 cm and diameter 1.0-1.5 cm), slightly round fruit, and deep purple in color at full ripe stage. The pulp is purple in color but tastes less juicy and sweetness compared to Ra Jamun.

The other oblong type of jamun has been identified at Narendra Dev University of Agriculture and Technology, Faizabad, India with the fruits produced in more fruit weight and high pulp:seed ratio. A seedless jamun was reported by Singh and Srivastava (2000).

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Syzygium samarangense is origin from the Malay Archipelago (Nakasone and Paull, 1998; Young, 1951) and is indigenous from Malaysia, Andaman and Nicobar Islands where they are wild trees in the coastal forests. Nowadays, wax apple is common in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Taiwan while in India, Zanzibar and Pemba, the trees are planted as ornamental. Taiwan has a more extensive commercial industry on wax apple production around Pingtung at the southern end of the island.

The genus of Syzygium includes a number of fleshy fruit bearing species: Syzygium aqueum (Rose water apple, Bell fruit, Jambu air) is native to India through Malaysia; Syzygium cumini (Java plum, Jambolan), a tree native to India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia; Syzygium jambos (Rose apple, Malaba plum) which is probably originated in Malaysia and possibly south-eastern and Syzygium malaccense (Malay apple, Pomerac, Jambu bol, yanbu).

Economic importance

Fruit production is non seasonal in Asian countries but the peak period ranged from March to April and November to December. In Taiwan, growers managed to harvest the fruits all year round due to the successful off-season production techniques and the area, total production and economic value for the wax apple industry were 7302 ha, 84,991 tons and $ 182 million US dollars, respectively, in 2005. 'Pink' was the leading cultivar in Taiwan which represents 99% of the planted area in Taiwan (Wang, 1991). In Thailand , the wax apple can be harvested almost year-round and the major cultivars are 'Phet Ban Plew', 'Phet Sai Rung', 'Thun Klao', 'Phet Jin Da', 'Number One', 'Phet Sam Phran', 'Dang Indo', 'Phet Nam Pueng', and 'Thub Thim Chan'. The area, total production and the economic value were 10,240 ha, 69,608 tons and $ 26.5 million US dollars in 2004. The production area and production for the year 2003 in Indonesia were 13,454 ha and 239,108 tons, respectively. Wax apple is cultivated mainly as smallholdings ranging from 1 to 5 ha in Malaysia with its hectare age 1,500 ha in 2005. For Malaysia , the major cultivars planted are 'Pale Green', 'Dark Red', 'Light Red' and 'Green'.