FoI
White Sapote
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White Sapote
ntroduced Photo: Amit Kumar
Common name: White Sapote, Mexican-apple, Casimiroa
Botanical name: Casimiroa edulis    Family: Rutaceae (Lemon family)

White Sapote is a species of tropical fruiting tree, native to eastern Mexico and Central America south to Costa Rica. Mature trees range from 5-16 m tall and are evergreen. The leaves are alternate, digitately compound with 3-5 leaflets. The leaflets are 6-13 cm long and 2.5-5 cm broad with an entire margin, and the leaf stalks is 10-15 cm long. Flowers are yellow-green and not scented. They are grouped in panicles. The fruit is an ovoid drupe, 5-10 cm in diameter, with a thin, inedible skin turning from green to yellow when ripe, and an edible pulp, which can range in flavor from bland to banana-like to peach to pear to vanilla flan. The pulp can be creamy-white in green skin varieties or a beige- yellow in yellow skin varieties. It contains from one to five seeds that are said to have narcotic properties.

Identification credit: Amit Kumar
Photographed in Forest Research Institute, Dehradun.
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