Above you see a softball-size mamey fruit on a branch with large, tongue-like leaves clustered toward the branch tip.
Mamey trees, Pouteria sapota, belong to the same Family as Sapodillas, and mamey fruits are just as wonderful. Newcomers can have problems distinguishing Mamey trees from Sapodilla trees. The Mamey's leaves are larger and wider toward their tips than the Sapodilla tree's, plus mamey fruits are oval and contain only one large seed while sapodilla fruits are more spherical and usually bear more than one seed. Mamey fruits, like sapodilla fruits, have a custard texture and the flesh is "bright burned-magenta-orange," according to one color-savvy person.
Another distinctive feature of the Mamey tree is that its very numerous, small flowers arise directly from stout stems instead of in typical flower clusters such as spikes, racemes or panicles. Below, you can see immature mamey fruits dangling from a thick stem covered with dozens of flowers, the vast majority of which will fall off after pollination.
