Manilkara zapota (Chickoo)

Description:

A perfect forest, street (with no trouble dropping fruit), or fruit tree, Sopadilla or chickoo achieves a height of 45 feet with a 40-foot canopy. The thick, dark and shiny, four-inch-long evergreen leaves are clustered at twig tips and the delicate, cream-colored solitary flowers occur all year round in the leaf axils. The four-inch scurfy brown fruits have a juicy, spicy, yellow-brown flesh and ripen to spring and summer softness. Flower-to-fruit is around ten months. Once hurt, the bark and branches weep a white latex, the root of chicle, the initial gum chewing base. The trunk on older specimens is flaky and appealing, flaring into various surface roots at the foot.