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 (map pin). 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 brought it to Southern California in 1910. The genus is named for Spanish botanist Casimiro Gómez Ortega; the species name indicates its popularity as a 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 (Clausenia lampium), 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 5 leaflets, and resemble those of our native buckeye but are alternately, not oppositely, arranged 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 most popular kind, ‘Suebelle’, near the north corner of the grounds of the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto (351 Homer Avenue) (map pin). This variety is said to bear fruit nearly year-round, thus surely deserving a place in campus gardens.
About this Entry: Created by Sairus Patel (Feb 2024). Revised (Aug 2024, SP).
