Food Plants International - Plant Fact Sheets Manilkara zapota - Sapodilla
Edible Portion: Fruit, Sap, Latex, Leaves, Gum
A medium sized evergreen tree up to 18 m tall. It can grow to 30 m in tropical regions. The leaves are 8-12 cm long by 2-4 cm wide. The leaves are green and shiny. The leaves tend to be clustered in spirals near the ends of twigs. The flowers are single and white in the axils of leaves. They are bell like and 1 cm across and produced on long stalks. The fruit has several smooth black shiny seeds. The fruit are normally in pairs and 5-8 cm across. It is rusty brown in colour. The fruit can be seedless or can have up to 3 to 12 hard shiny seeds inside. The seeds are flattened and about 2 cm long. The tree has a milky juice. There are several named cultivated varieties.