Pear apple tree
| Pear apple tree | ||||||||||||
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Pear Apple Tree ( Manilkara zapota ) |
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| Manilkara Zapota | ||||||||||||
| ( L. ) P. Royen |
The sapodilla ( Manilkara zapota ), also sapote , gum tree or sapodilla called, is a plant from the family of sapotaceae (Sapotaceae). This species is of economic importance as its milky sap is used for the extraction of natural rubber . The raw material called chicle is used, among other things, to make chewing gum . The fruits called sapodilla are also important, they are eaten as fruit.
description
Vegetative characteristics
The Preiapfelbaum is a slow-growing, long-lived, evergreen tree that usually reaches heights of 12 to 18 m, but rarely up to 40 m and trunk diameters of 2 to 3.5 m. The bark is grayish, longitudinally fissured and coarsely scaly. The tree has a lot of white milky sap . The roots spread just below the surface of the earth, about 80% of the roots are at a depth of less than 75 cm. About 66% of the moisture absorbed by the plant is absorbed in this area.
The decorative, simple, shiny and leathery leaves are alternate and spiral in groups at the tips of the branches . The short petioles are 0.8 to 3 cm long. The elliptical to lanceolate or obovate, -eilanzettliche leaf blade has a length of 8 to 18 cm and a width of 3 to 7 cm. The leaves are entire and pointed to pointed or rounded. Both leaf sides are almost equally colored and hairless, at least when old. The veins are finely pinnate, but on the underside the veins are raised and clearly visible.
blossoms
The flowers stand individually in the leaf axils on 1.2 to 2.5 cm long flower stalks . These are provided with a reddish-brown, felty hair that loses itself somewhat with age. The small flowers are bell-shaped. The six sepals , standing in two circles, are 6 to 10 mm long, egg-shaped or occasionally elongated and hairy with fine felts. The outer sepals lose some of their hair with age, but are rarely completely hairless. The crown is white, 6 to 11 mm long, of which the pitcher-shaped corolla tube usually makes up half to 2/3. The upright calyx tips are oblong to ovate and 1.5 to 3 mm wide, the edge is entire, irregularly serrated or only serrated at the tip. Rear appendages, as they occur in other species of the genus, are not formed. The staminodes at the top of the corolla tube are corolla-like, but narrowly ovoid and 3 to 4.5 mm long, the edge is irregularly jagged. The short stamens are attached to the top of the corolla tube and are 2/3 to 3/4 as long as the staminodes. The upper ovary is densely hairy and silky; of 4.5 to 8 mm long, conical stylus is hairy only at the base, the scar is often irregularly toothed or lobed.
Fruits and seeds
Only a small part of the flowers sets fruit . Depending on the variety, climate and soil conditions, fruit ripening can take between four and ten months. The rough, more or less hot-scabbed and thin-skinned fruits ( berries , armored berries ) are brown and elliptical to ovoid or almost spherical in shape. They have a diameter of 5 to 10 cm and sometimes still have calyx remains at the bottom. The flesh is soft, juicy, sweet and yellowish, orange to reddish-brown in color. The fruit is sometimes without seeds, usually it contains three to twelve seeds . The hard, brown to black and shiny seeds have a narrow, white edge ( hilum ), are depressed, flat and 16 to 24 mm long, the side notch extends from the base to over the middle of the seed.
Chromosome number
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 24 + 1-3.
distribution
An area from Mexico to Colombia is assumed to be the original origin . This species is distributed today from Mexico and South Florida over the West Indies to northern South America . It is also widely cultivated in tropical regions on other continents.
Commercial cultivation of the trees is known from India , the Philippines , Sri Lanka , Malaysia , Mexico, Venezuela , Guatemala and some other Central American countries.
use
The latex contains rubbery about 20-40%, with oligosaccharides substituted xylan - polymers . It is used as the basis for making chewing gum . To obtain this substance called chicle , the tree is provided with a series of interconnected, semicircular, zigzag-like incisions from which the milky sap emerges. To prevent the trees from dying, this procedure is only done every two or three years.
The fruits called sapodilla are eaten raw as a fruit by the inhabitants of the tropical regions of America . As the use of chicle in chewing gum production is declining in favor of synthetic raw materials, the plant is now mainly cultivated for its fruits.
swell
- Will H. Backwell, Jr .: Sapotaceae. In: Flora of Panama, Annals of Missouri Botanical Garden. Volume 55, Number 2, 1968. pp. 145-169, online at biodiversitylibrary.org.
- Michael V. Mickelbart: Sapodilla: A Potential Crop For Subtropical Climates . In: J. Janick (Ed.): Progress in new crops. ASHS Press, Alexandria, USA 1996, pp. 439-446.
- Julia F. Morton: Sapodilla. In: Fruits of warm climates. 1987, pp. 393-398, online .
Web links
- Manilkara zapota at Useful Tropical Plants
Individual evidence
- ↑ Manilkara zapota at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
- ↑ a b Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Manilkara zapota. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved June 4, 2020.
- ↑ Entry on Sapodilla. In: Römpp Online . Georg Thieme Verlag, accessed on May 25, 2014.