Chrysophyllum cainito
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Chrysophyllum cainito |
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Chrysophyllum cainito or the star apple , also called (common) gold leaf and (common) star apple tree, is a tree in the sapote family from Central America and the Caribbean .
description
Chrysophyllum cainito grows as an evergreen tree up to 15-20 meters or more high. The bark is relatively smooth to slightly cracked, scaly or flaky and brownish-greyish and there are roots on the trunk. The younger branches are rusty and hairy. The tree has a milky sap .
The simple, alternate, leathery and firm, stiff leaves have short stems. The strong petiole is about 1–1.5 inches long and very short with rusty hairs. The leaves are entire, egg-shaped, lanceolate to elliptical, lanceolate or elongated and rounded, less often indented or pointed, pointed to pointed. They are up to about 8-15 centimeters long. The underside is initially very short and densely rusty to copper-colored, silky hairy, later bald and then becomes pale green, the upper side is shiny and bare. The nerve is finely pinnate with a thick and raised central vein on the underside. Stipules are missing.
The axillary flowers appear in larger groups, heaped at the branch ends. The stalked, hermaphrodite flowers are usually five-fold with a double flower envelope . The plump flower stalk is short and hairy with rust. The outside, short and rusty hairy sepals are short fused with rounded and broad-egg-shaped tips. The greenish petals are fused into a short corolla tube with curved, triangular and round-pointed tips, partly rusty on the outside. The five short stamens sit at the top of the throat. The hairy, multi-chambered ovary is upper constant, with an almost seated and disc-shaped, lobed stigma , with a short and wide pen .
When ripe, the dark purple, multi-seeded and rounded berries are 5–10 centimeters tall. They have a slightly leathery, somewhat rubbery, smooth, relatively thin and slightly ribbed skin and a whitish-purple, fleshy-juicy, soft and sweet-sour pulp. Unripe fruits still contain a lot of milky juice. It contains up to about 10 seeds which are arranged in a star shape and lie in a whitish, translucent and membranous-gelatinous shell. The egg-shaped to ellipsoidal, brownish and smooth seeds with a thin seed coat are about 1.5-2 centimeters long. They have a larger scar ( hilum ) on one side .
use
The fruits are edible, they are used raw and cooked. The seeds, the shell and the inner "bark" are not edible.
The wood is hard and relatively heavy, but not very durable and can be used for various applications and constructions.
literature
- Jules Janick, Robert E. Paull: The Encyclopedia of Fruit and Nuts. CABI, 2008, ISBN 978-0-85199-638-7 , p. 824 ff.
- TK Lim: Edible Medicinal And Non-Medicinal Plants. Vol. 6: Fruits. Springer, 2013, ISBN 978-94-007-5627-4 , pp. 97-102.
Web links
- Chrysophyllum cainito at Useful Tropical Plants.
- Star Apple, Caimito at Growables, accessed September 11, 2019.
- Chrysophyllum cainito from Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, accessed September 11, 2019.
- Star Apple at Purdue, accessed September 12, 2019.