Casimiroa edulis
white sapote
The rarest fruit tree on campus, a single, heavily bearing white sapote grows near the east terrace of Hanna House, just north of the water cascade. Planted in 1939 by the Hannas as part of their extensive fruit orchard, it continues to bear clusters of apple-shaped fruit with cream-colored, custard-like flesh.
Hailing from the tropical highlands of Mexico and Central America, white sapote is grown there chiefly as a dooryard tree. Franciscan missionaries are thought to have brought it to Southern California around 1810. The genus is named for the Spanish botanist Casimiro Gómez Ortega; the species name, edulis, means edible, a nod to its delicious fruit. “Sapote” is from a Nahuatl word used for various soft and sweet fruits, including the brown-fleshed chikoo (Manilkara zapota) of the sapote family (Sapotaceae). Our white sapote, however, is in the citrus family. Campus foragers might remember another rare citrus relative, the wampee (Clausena lamsium), planted in 2006 near the Mausoleum and surviving until 2020.
The heavy trunk of the Hanna House specimen is pale gray and covered with myriad lenticels – tiny white bumps that are pleasing to run one’s fingertips across. Leaves are divided fanwise into mostly five leaflets and resemble those of our native buckeye, but are alternately arranged, not oppositely, on the branches. Delicate leaflets emerge a deep red except at their green tips, lending an enchanting aspect to flushes of new growth.
A small white sapote is on the right at 2230 Hanover Street in Palo Alto. There is no record of the cultivar of Stanford’s tree, but you can find the best-known cultivar, ‘Suebelle’, near the north corner of the grounds of the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto (351 Homer Avenue). Said to bear fruit nearly year-round, this variety surely deserves a place in campus gardens.
About this Entry: Authored Feb 2024 by Sairus Patel. Last updated Oct 2026 (SP).
