The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Diospyros nigra
Also called Chocolate pudding fruit, Black soapapple
Black sapote is a large evergreen tropical fruit tree whose soft, dark flesh is said to taste like chocolate pudding. Give it full sun, warmth and a frost-free site, and expect fruit about 3 to 4 years from seed.
Diospyros nigra, the black sapote, is a species of persimmon. Common names include chocolate pudding fruit, black soapapple and (in Spanish) zapote prieto. The tropical fruit tree is native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. The common name sapote refers to any soft, edible fruit. Black sapote is not related to white sapote and is only distantly related to mamey sapote. The genus Diospyros has numerous other fruit bearing tree species in addition to the persimmons and black sapote. It is said to taste like chocolate pudding.
Propagation is usually from seed, which can retain viability for several months and require around 30 days for germination. Some trees are seedless however, and can be propagated by air-layering or shield budding.
Mabolo · Diospyros buxifolia · Diospyros diepenhorstii · Ebony · Diospyros egrettarum · Diospyros ferrea · Australian Ebony · Japanese persimmon · Date-plum · Indian Persimmon · Tendu · Diamond Leaf Persimmon
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Diospyros nigra by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
