Manilkara zapota
Sapodilla
Manilkara zapota - Sapodilla or chico - is an evergreen tree native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. It is a slow-growing tree with white bark, that contains a gummy sap, called chicle, and glossy green leaves that are clustered at the tip twigs. Sapodilla flowers are small, cream-coloured, and bell-shaped, and are followed by small, egg-shaped fruit with a rough, brown skin when ripe, and has a granular, sweet flesh that can be yellow to orange to brown in colour and sweet flavour that varies with the variety. Some taste like a pear, and some taste like brown sugar. The fruit is a food for rainforest mammals - such as howler monkeys, kinkajous, tapirs, peccaries, and bats. The bats sometimes pollinate the tree while drinking nectar produced by its flowers. The fruit contain inedible, small, brown seeds.
Contributed by @KathyB
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Full sun to partial shade
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Very little water
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A little frost hardy: 32F (0°C)
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Free draining
Common name
Sapodilla
Latin name
Manilkara zapota
type
Evergreen fruiting tree
family
Sapotaceae
ph
5.5 - 8.5 Acid - Neutral
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Light
Full sun to partial shade
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Frost
A little frost hardy: 32F (0°C)
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Soil
Free draining
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Water
Very little water
Plant & bloom calendar
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Best time to plant
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When the plant will bloom
full grown dimensions
4.00 M
30.00 M
Manilkara zapota
Manilkara zapota - Sapodilla or chico - is an evergreen tree native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. It is a slow-growing tree with white bark, that contains a gummy sap, called chicle, and glossy green leaves that are clustered at the tip twigs. Sapodilla flowers are small, cream-coloured, and bell-shaped, and are followed by small, egg-shaped fruit with a rough, brown skin when ripe, and has a granular, sweet flesh that can be yellow to orange to brown in colour and sweet flavour that varies with the variety. Some taste like a pear, and some taste like brown sugar. The fruit is a food for rainforest mammals - such as howler monkeys, kinkajous, tapirs, peccaries, and bats. The bats sometimes pollinate the tree while drinking nectar produced by its flowers. The fruit contain inedible, small, brown seeds.
Flowering
From Mid Spring TO Late Spring
The flowers, that are followed by fruit about the size, shape and colour of kiwi fruit, but without the fuzzy skin,appear in Spring
Planting
From Early Spring TO Late Spring
This is a tree that will tolerate most soils, and once mature can tolerate quite low temperatures - even a slight frost, if protected, and provided the frost is short-lived. However, a tree would do better, and be more likely to fruit, if grown in a container, in cooler climes, so that it can be brought indoors in cool or cold Winters
Propagating by seed
From Early Spring TO Late Spring
Sapodilla trees can be propagated by seed, although commercially propagation is usually be grafting. The seeds are viable for many years. A tree grown from seed takes a very long time - five or six years at lest - before it will bear fruit.
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