 | Avocado (persea americana) | | | Avocado (Persea americana) is a tree and the fruit of that tree, classified in the flowering plant family, Lauraceae. It is native to Central America and Mexico. The tree grows to 20 m (65 ft), with alternately arranged, evergreen leaves, 12-25 cm long. The flowers are inconspicuous, greenish-yellow, 5-10 mm wide. The pear-shaped fruit is botanically a berry or drupe, from 7 to 20 cm long, and weighs between 100-1000 g. It has a large central seed, 3-5 cm in diameter.
An average avocado tree produces about 120 avocados annually. Commercial orchards produce an average of 7 tonnes per hectare each year, with some orchards achieving 20 tonnes per hectare. Biennial bearing can be a problem, with heavy crops in one year being followed by poor yields the next. The fruit is sometimes called an avocado pear or alligator pear, from its shape and green skin. The avocado tree does not tolerate freezing temperatures, and so can be grown only in subtropical and tropical climates. |  | | Identified is the avocado as a fruit adapted for ecological relationship with large mammals, now extinct (as for example the South American herbivorous giant ground sloths or the Gomphotheres). This fruit with its mildly toxic pit, co-evolved with those extinct mammals to be swallowed whole and excreted in dung, ready to sprout. The ecological partners have disappeared, and the avocado plant has not had time to evolve an alternative seed dispersal technique, aside from human cultivation. | | This subtropical species needs a climate without frost and not too much wind. When a frost event does happen, the fruit drops from the tree, reducing the yield. The cultivar 'Hass' can tolerate temperatures down to -1 °C. The trees also need well aerated soils, ideally more than 1 m deep. Yield is reduced when the irrigation water has a high electrical conductivity. These soil and climate conditions are met only in a few areas of the world, particularly in southern Spain, Israel, South Africa, Peru, northern Chile, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Central America, the center of origin and diversity of this species. In the U.S., avocados are produced commercially only in California and Florida, although the varieties used are different. | | The earliest known account of the avocado in Europe is that of Martin Fernandez De Encisco in 1519. The plant was first introduced to Indonesia by 1750, Brazil in 1809, Palestine in 1908, and South Africa and Australia in the late 19th century. |  | | Avocado can be grown as a houseplant from seed. Although it will not normally bear fruit indoors, people enjoy it for its greenery. It can be germinated in normal soil in a large pot, or in a glass of water with a piece of charcoal for deodorizing, with the top half (the pointed end) held up by toothpicks. |  | | The English name for the avocado is derived from its Nahuatl name 'ahuacatl', meaning testicle (due to its shape), with influence from the conquering Spanish. Avocado became obsolete in Spanish because it sounds too much like 'abogado' (lawyer). In some countries of South America, such as (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay), the avocado is known by its Quechua name, 'palta'. In other Spanish-speaking countries it is called "aguacate". The name avocado pear is sometimes used in English, as is alligator pear. The Nahuatl ahuacatl can be compounded with other words, as in ahuacamolli, meaning "avocado soup or sauce", from which the Mexican-Spanish word guacamole derives. In the U.S., the popularity of guacamole has soared in recent years, and as a result, the word has been fully adopted into U.S.-English, though the pronunciation is sometimes varied by dropping the final 'e' sound or abbreviating the word to its first syllable "guac". The plural of avocado is avocados or avocadoes. In Chinese, the avocado is evocatively called the "butter fruit". |  | |
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