Sapote

Sapote (from Nahuatl tzapotl)[1] is a term for a soft, edible fruit. The word is incorporated into the common names of several unrelated fruit-bearing plants native to Mexico, Central America and northern parts of South America. It is also known in Caribbean English as soapapple.

• 
  White sapote
• 
  South American sapote
• 
  Lòng mứt, a kind of Vietnamese sapote
• 
  Mamey sapote
• 
  Sapodilla
• 
  Yellow sapote

Sapote

Black sapote
Type	Fruit
Region or state	Mexico, Central America and northern parts of South America

Sapotaceae

Some but not all sapotes come from the family Sapotaceae:

• Sapodilla, also called naseberry (Manilkara zapota) is native to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, and possibly El Salvador. The Sapotaceae were named after a synonym of this species.
• Yellow sapote (Pouteria campechiana) is native to Mexico and Central America.
• Mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota) is from southern Mexico to northern South America.
• Green sapote (Pouteria viridis) is native to lowland southern Mexico.

Ebenaceae

Sapotes from the family Ebenaceae include:

• Black sapote (Diospyros nigra), from eastern Mexico south to Colombia, is probably the original Aztec tzapotl.
• Chapote (Diospyros texana) is native to the lower Rio Grande valley region in Texas and Mexico

Other sapote

• White sapote (Casimiroa edulis: Rutaceae) is native to northern and central Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala.[2]
• South American sapote (Quararibea cordata: Malvaceae) is native to the Amazon rainforests of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

References

1. Watson, George (April 1938). "Nahuatl Words in American English". American Speech. 13 (2): 113–114. doi:10.2307/451954. JSTOR 451954.
2. "Casimiroa edulis". Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 2009-03-26.