Common names: nanas or ananas (in many Indian languages of South America, and in French and Portuguese), pina (Spanish), pineapple.
Instead of producing stolons, A. comosus multiplies by stem shoots (terrestrial and aerial), slips (from the peduncle) and crown. The syncarpic fruit is formed of 50-200 berries. The spines are generally antrorse but some genotypes also exhibit a few retrorse spines. As commonly found in Bromeliaceae, A. comosus is diploid, with 50 minute and almost spherical chromosomes (Collins and Kerns, 1931; Canpinpin and Rotor, 1937; Marchant, 1967; Sharma and Ghosh, 1971; Lin et al., 1987; Brown and Gilmartin, 1989; Dujardin., 1991). Giant unreduced gametes may appear and produce natural triploids and tetraploids (Collins, 1933, 1960). Most genotypes present reduced self-fertility because of the action of a self-incompatibility system, with considerable variation in its expression (Coppens d'Eeckenbrugge et al, 1993). The natural distribution of A. comosus corresponds to that of its variety ananassoides, extending east of the Andes (with some presence in the foothills of the central Andes of Colombia), from northern South America to northern Argentina and Paraguay. —SeeBartholomew et al. 2003
