The Sapote
Calocarpum Mammosum, Pierre
The sapote is one of the important fruits of the Central American
lowlands. It furnishes to the Indians a nourishing and agreeable food,
obtainable during a certain part of the year in considerable abundance.
Cook and Collins remark : "It was this fruit that kept Cortes and his
army alive on their famous march from Mexico City to Honduras."
In
the hot and humid lowlands the sapote becomes a large tree, often 65
feet high, with a thick trunk and stout branches. The Indians, when
clearing the forest in order to plant coffee or other crops, usually
spare the sapote trees they encounter, for they regard the fruit
highly. The foliage is abundant, and light green in color. The leaves,
which are clustered toward the ends of the stout branchlets, are
obovate to oblanceolate in outline, broadest toward the apex, and 4 to
10 inches long. The small flowers are produced in great numbers along
the branchlets. The sepals are eight to ten, imbricate, in several
series; the corolla is tubular, whitish, with five lobes. The stamens
are five and the ovary is hairy, five-celled, with one ovule in each
cell. The fruit is elliptic or oval in form, commonly 3 to 6 inches
long, russet-brown in color, the skin thick and woody and the surface
somewhat scurfy. The flesh is firm, salmon-red to reddish brown in
color, and finely granular in texture. The large elliptic seed can be
lifted out of the fruit as easily as that of an avocado; it is hard,
brown, and shining, except on the ventral surface, which is whitish and
somewhat rough. To one unaccustomed to the exceedingly sweet fruits of
the tropics, the flavor of the sapote is at first somewhat cloying
because of its richness and lack of acidity. When made into a sherbet,
as is done in Habana, it is sure to be relished at first trial.
Inferior or improperly ripened sapotes will be found to have a
pronounced squash-like flavor.
Fig. 44. The sapote (Calocarpum
mammosum). (X 1/3)
Pittier,
whose studies of the sapotaceous fruits have done much to clear away
the botanical confusion in which they have been involved, considers the
sapote to be indigenous to Central America. Outside of its native area
it is grown in the West Indies, in South America, and in the
Philippines. In Cuba it is particularly abundant and the fruit highly
esteemed. Though it has been planted in southeastern Florida it has
never succeeded in that region. The limiting factor there seems to be
unfavorable soil rather than temperature, while in California it has
always succumbed to the cold, even when grown in the most protected
situations.
In the British West Indies the sapote is called
mammee-sapota, marmalade-plum, and marmalade-fruit. In the French West
Indies it is known as sapote and grosse sapote. In Cuba it is called
mamey Colorado and, less commonly, mamey zapote. Throughout its native
area, southern Mexico and Central America, it is known in Spanish as
zapote (from the Nahuatl or Aztec name tzapotl) and this name is used
also in Ecuador and Colombia. In the Philippines the term is
chico-mamey. The more important botanical synonyms are : Achras mammosa, L.,
Lucuma
mammosa, Gaertn., Vitellaria
mammosa, Radlk., and Achradelpha
mammosa, Cook. The name mamey, improperly applied to this
fruit, results in its being confused with Mammea americana, L.
The
Indians of Central America commonly eat the sapote out of hand, but it
is occasionally made into a rich preserve and it may be employed in
other ways. In Cuba it is used as a "filler" in making guava-cheese,
and a thick jam, called crema de mamey Colorado, is also prepared from
it. The seed is an article of commerce in Central America, where the
large kernel is roasted and used to mix with cacao in making chocolate.
The
tree is tropical in its requirements. In Guatemala it is most abundant
at elevations from sea-level to 2000 feet; at 3000 feet it is still
quite common, but at 4000 feet it is rarely seen. At higher elevations
it is injured by the cold and makes very slow growth. It thrives on
heavy soils, such as the clays and clay-loams of Guatemala. It is
believed in Florida that the plant does not like a soil which is rich
in lime, and that for this reason it has failed to succeed at Miami and
other points in the state where conditions otherwise seem to be
favorable. P. W. Reasoner considered it to be as frost-resistant as the
sapodilla.
Seedlings start bearing when seven or eight years old
if grown under favorable conditions, and when of good size yield
regularly and abundantly. The fruits are picked when mature, and laid
away in a cool place to ripen, which requires about a week. If shipped
as soon as picked from the tree, they can be sent to northern markets
without difficulty. Sapotes from Cuba and Central America are often
seen in the markets of Tampa and New Orleans. The season of ripening
extends over a period of two or three months, usually beginning about
August in the West Indies and Central America. Differences in
elevation, and consequently in climate of course affect the time of
ripening.
All of the sapote trees in tropical America are
seedlings. Neither budding nor grafting has yet been used with this
species, so far as is known. The seeds, which cannot be kept long,
germinate more readily if the thick husk is removed before planting.
They should be placed in sand or light soil, laid on their sides, and
scarcely covered. When the young plants are six or eight inches high,
they may be transferred to four- or five-inch pots. Their growth is
rapid at first, but much slower after they have exhausted the food
reserves stored in the large seed. It is probable that budding will
prove as successful with the sapote as it has with the sapodilla.
Seedlings differ greatly in the size, shape, and quality of their
fruits. The best one should be propagated by some vegetative means.
Back to
Mamey
Sapote Page
|