Surinam Cherry
Eugenia uniflora
Found in hammocks, coastal strands, disturbed uplands. Weakley, Flora of the Southeastern United States (2025), Florida edition What its natural habitat tells you
Not native to Florida. How scores work Is it native here?
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Do not plant. Listed invasive in Florida.
At a glance
Not yet recorded · Height · Spread · Light · Soil · Life cycle · Leaves · Bloom
This plant is missing most of its facts, so Quercus is looking them up in old botany books.
Recorded in 23 Florida counties.
Natural habitats
Places it grows wild. Not a planting requirement. Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.
Dense, evergreen groves of live oak, magnolia and other hardwoods in the southern Coastal Plain, from dry oak domes to wet hydric hammocks and south Florida's tropical hammocks; salt-shaped maritime hammocks are maritime forests.
Who uses this plant?
11CaterpillarsGenus host records with ranges including FL
Genus host records with ranges including FL · Eugenia
- Argyresthia eugeniellaGuava Fruit Moth
- Argyrotaenia amatanaPondapple Leafroller Moth
- Eupseudosoma involutaSnowy Eupseudosoma
- Oiketicus abbotiiAbbot's Bagworm Moth
- Platynota rostranaOmnivorous Platynota
- Strepsicrates smithianaBayberry Leaftier
- Antiblemma rufinans
- Chilocampyla dyariella
- Epidromia pannosa
- Heliozela eugeniella
Show all 11
- Platynota calidana
—BeesSoutheastern regional records
—Specialist beesPollen specialists
—BirdsRecorded genus food-resource interactions; not a state feeding claimPlant details
- Family
- Myrtaceae
Safety has not been reviewed for this plant; check toxicity and thorns before planting.
Conservation status
| Florida rank | SNA |
|---|---|
| Global rank | Not available |
| FL status | Not verified |
| Federal status | Not verified |
Native alternatives
Find natives for your gardenSources
- Atlas of Florida Plants
- Florida Invasive Species Council list
- Weakley, Flora of the Southeastern United States (2025), Florida edition
- NatureServe Explorer
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications