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Pouteria sapota
Also called Naseberry / mamey sapote / mamey sapota, Naseberry, Marmalade Plum, Marmalade Tree, Mamey, Mamey Sapote, Sapote
Mamey sapote is a large evergreen tree from Central America and southern Mexico, grown for its sweet, creamy, salmon-colored fruit. The key to growing it is warm frost-free conditions, well-drained soil, and grafted rather than seed-grown trees for reliable fruit.
Pouteria sapota, the mamey sapote, is a species of tree native to Central America and southern Mexico. It is now cultivated throughout Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, as well as in Florida and parts of South America. Its fruit is eaten raw in many Latin American countries, and is added to smoothies, milkshakes, ice cream, and other foods.
It prefers smooth sandy, deep, clay and fertile soils, with pH of 5.5 to 6.5. The species does not tolerate low temperatures, prolonged periods of drought, or soils with bad drainage or where the water table is very high.
It is mainly propagated by grafting, which ensures the new plant has the same characteristics as the parent, especially its fruit, as it does not grow true to seed. Grafting also produces fruiting trees considerably faster than growing by seed - grafted trees produce fruit in 3–5 years while trees grown from seed require 7 or more years of growth before fruiting. Seeds lose viability within a month of harvest, so should be sown immediately.
The native range probably extends from the southern Mexican states of Veracruz, Tabasco, and Chiapas through Nicaragua, Belize, and northern Honduras. This is uncertain, however, because the tree was already widely cultivated in the tropical Americas prior to European colonization. Today, it is cultivated in most Mexican states, many Caribbean islands, and tropical continental America from Florida to Brazil. The first record of cultivation in south Florida dates to the 1880s. It has also been introduced to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
The fruit is eaten raw or made into milkshakes, smoothies, ice cream, and paletas. It can be used to produce marmalade and jelly. Some beauty products use oil pressed from the seed, otherwise known as sapayul oil.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pouteria sapota 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.
