Manilkara zapota(L.) P.Royen

sapodilla

WFO wfo-0000235995 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Manilkara zapota, photographed by Ben Costamagna
fig. a Ben Costamagna, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-11-15 / obs. 169133218
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Lyrae
fig. b Lyrae, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134588354
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. c Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 125633118
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Isaac Chacón
fig. d Isaac Chacón, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 125820466
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Vreni Gem O. Caasi
fig. e Vreni Gem O. Caasi, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 69550049
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Juan Cruzado Cortés
fig. f Juan Cruzado Cortés, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 63973713
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. g Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63216280
Manilkara zapota, photographed by Juan Cruzado Cortés
fig. h Juan Cruzado Cortés, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 61816819

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02674786
Filed as
Manilkara zapota (L.) P.Royen
Det. by
T. D. Pennington 2017-01-01
Collected
P. da C. Gadelha Neto 2012-01-03
Origin
BR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 14 botanical countries

Regions where Manilkara zapota is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeColombiaCosta RicaEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaPanamá
Native distribution of Manilkara zapota, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,108 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.2 °C 20.3 °C 24.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.9 °C 30.7 °C 37.5 °C
Annual rainfall 764 mm 1,406 mm 3,058 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 10 mm 111 mm 497 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,108 research-grade observations of Manilkara zapota that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 75 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Achradelpha mammosa (L.) O.F.Cook
  • Achras breviloba (Gilly) Lundell
  • Achras calderonii (Gilly) Lundell
  • Achras conzattii (Gilly) Lundell
  • Achras coriacea Lundell
  • Achras dactylina Lundell
  • Achras gaumeri (Gilly) Lundell
  • Achras latiloba Lundell
  • Achras lobulata (Lundell) Lundell
  • Achras lucuma Blanco
  • Achras mammosa L.
  • Achras meridionalis (Gilly) Lundell
  • Achras occidentalis Hort.Cels ex Ten.
  • Achras paludosa Lundell
  • Achras petenensis (Lundell) Lundell
  • Achras rojasii (Gilly) Lundell
  • Achras sapatilla J.Paul & W.Arnold
  • Achras sapota L.
  • Achras sapota f. asperrima M.Gómez
  • Achras sapota var. candollei Pierre
  • Achras sapota var. globosa Stokes
  • Achras sapota var. lobata (A.DC.) Pierre
  • Achras sapota var. ovalis Stokes
  • Achras sapota var. pedicellaris Pierre

and 51 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.