Plant family: Sapotaceae
Plant origin: Southern Mexico and Central America.
Fruit description: The fruit is egg-shaped or elongated, 9cm long, and dull brown in colour. Sapodilla fruit has a very sweet coffee/cinnamon/brown sugar/caramel flavour! The delicious rich, flesh is honey coloured, sweet and slightly juicy. The fruit has 1 or 2 hard shiny seeds which are not edible.
Flowers: The flowers are small, white or brown, in occur in clusters at leaf stems, Grafted Sapodillas will flower and set fruit in the first year.
Growing conditions: The Sapodilla is a hardy, long-lived, evergreen tree growing slowly to about 8 metres in height. It cannot tolerate heavy frost. The leaves are leathery and dark green. The tree can tolerate poor soil but likes rich well-drained soil. The established tree can tolerate coastal conditions, drought and wind. It can grow in warm, subtropical, and tropical climates. Grafted Sapodillas can easily grow in a pot.
Uses: Eat the delicious Sapodilla fresh, or add it to fruit salad or desserts, or mixed with cream or custard, made into milkshakes, or ice-cream. It can also be enjoyed with lime or lemon juice. Store ripe fruit in the refrigerator.
Medicinal uses:
Pollination requirements: Self-Pollinating.
Harvest time Ripe fruit is brown and has a slight give when gently pressed. If you rub the skin and find that under the brown fine hairs it is still green, then it is not quite ripe. Unripe fruit has a milky latex, which is astringent. Sapodillas be picked firm off the tree, and can continue to ripen at room temperature.
Plant relatives
Special features: The tree can be tapped to obtain a sap or latex called chicle, used as a basis for chewing gum. When the wood is burned, the smoke smells like incense.
Grown by method: Grafted Pot size: 175mm
Plant growing Height and Width for pots or in the ground planting: Grows to 2.5 metres high by 2 metres wide if Planted in a Pot. Grows 8 metres high by 5 metres wide if Planted in the Ground.
Shipping plant pot or planter bag size: 175mm
