Manilkara zapota
The chicle or chicozapote (Manilkara zapota) is a tree of the Sapotaceae family (formerly called Sapota zapotilla, chicozapote or Achras zapota) native to Central America and tropical South America. It is also known colloquially as ácana or medlar. It was introduced to the Philippines during the Spanish colonization. Since then, it has spread throughout Asia and grows in large quantities in India, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia and Bangladesh, places where the fruit is very popular and is known as chikoo. The word zapote is of Nahuatl origin: tzapotl, a name given to the spherical-shaped fruits and large seeds. The word chicle is also of Nahuatl chictli/tzictli origin. In Maya it is sicte, the sacred tree of the chicozapote. Due to its sweet and aromatic flavor, numerous Amerindian peoples used the gum to chew, known as chicle (from the Nahuatl tzictli) which is a rubbery polymer obtained from tree sap. In other parts of Latin America and in Spain it is synonymous with chewing gum; although most of the current ones use a neutral plastic base, polyvinyl acetate. Until relatively recently, chewing gum still used this sap as a material. A chewing gum substitute can also be made from cowhide.
Classification and description
It belongs to the Sapotaceae family, it is a large evergreen tree, from 25 to 35 m tall with a diameter of up to 1.25 m. Leaves arranged in a spiral, agglomerated at the tips of the branches, simple, elliptic to oblong, margin entire. Straight trunk, ribbed at the bottom. Deeply fissured bark, forming more or less rectangular pieces, with an abundant white and sticky milky exudate, very bitter and astringent. Axillary solitary flowers, sometimes crowded at the tips of the branches, sweetly scented; Falls greenish brown, corolla tubular white. Berry-like fruit 5 to 10 cm in diameter, brown and rough skin, fleshy and juicy pulp, very sweet. The immature fruits have a certain amount of latex inside. The fruit normally contains 5 shiny, black seeds with a visible white thread on the edge.
Distribution
It is found from the slope of the Gulf of Mexico from San Luis Potosí and northern Veracruz and Puebla to the Yucatán peninsula and on the slope of the Pacific Ocean from Nayarit to Chiapas, to the tropical forest in the department of Chocó in the Colombian Pacific and the Caribbean region of Colombia, its distribution is found in the departments of Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Norte de Santander and Santander. In states of Brazil and provinces of Ecuador.
Because it was distributed since ancient times its exact origin is not very clear. It is believed to be native to southern Mexico and Central America. Later it was taken to the Antilles and the rest of the tropical world. It is abundant in the Petén area of Guatemala, where it is common to find up to 50 adult wild trees per hectare. It has been widely planted primarily for its fruits in many countries of the New and Old World, notably China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Laos, Venezuela, Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States. In Southeast Asia it is a common species in gardens and orchards as well as plantations.
Habitat
It is an important component of warm, humid, and sub-humid tropical forests. It grows and develops in sites from 0 to 1,200 m, with average temperatures of 26 °C, maximums of 37 °C and minimums of 15 °C, and rainfall of 750 to 2,700 mm. It is not very demanding on soils, it grows on limy, rocky, sandy, clayey, saline and infertile soils, although the best productions are achieved on loamy, deep, well-drained soils rich in organic matter. In deciduous forests, it is restricted to wet soils. It thrives on steep, flat or slightly sloping terrain, ravines, acahuales, pastures, flooded plains and river plains.
Conservation status
Native to Mexico and Central America. cultivated. Wild. Wild populations are "castrated" to extract the latex from the bark. It is abundant in the Petén area of Guatemala, where it is common to find up to 50 adult wild trees per hectare. It is not under any category of protection according to regulation 059 of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) of Mexico.
Gathering
The process of harvesting chicle is very similar to that used to extract rubber from Hevea brasiliensis.
Between July and February, in the rainy season, the trunk of the tree is marked in the morning with shallow, zigzag cuts with a machete, so that the sap flows through the cuts and is deposited in bags placed for that purpose; In the afternoon, the chicleros collect the kilogram and a half (approximately) of sap that has sprouted and transport it to processing plants.
Manilkara zapota is not harvested until it is 25 years old, and, since scarification of old cuts needs to heal, each tree can only be drained once every two or three years. Likewise, the possibilities of exploitation are not indefinite. The demand for chicle grew enormously over the last century, which led to the use of other similar species (balatá, M. bidentata, and Mimusops globosa). Today petroleum-based products are preferably used instead of natural resins.
Industrialization
Antonio López de Santa Anna, after being deposed from the Mexican government by the revolution led by Juan Álvarez, went into exile in the United States. While living in Staten Island, New York, he had a shipment of natural gum, of which he was very fond, brought home. An acquaintance of his, the industrialist and inventor Thomas Adams conceived the project of using the material as a substitute for rubber, which reached stratospheric prices for the time.
However, the resin of M. Zapota proved too soft for that purpose, and Adams lost vast amounts of money in the process, having tried to use it to make bicycle tires, toys, rain boots, and masks. General López de Santa Anna's fondness for chewing the material suggested to him the idea of marketing it as a substitute for paraffin, which young people used to chew at that time. In 1869 he obtained a patent for chewing gum, and two years later he began to mass market it under the brand name Adams New York Chewing Gum . In 1875 he had the idea of mixing the product with maple syrup and licorice for flavor.
The mint flavor, so popular today, was not introduced until 1880; In that year, William White manufactured the first gum with that flavor under the Yucatán brand. Other inventions of the time were Beemans Chewing Gum, developed by physician Edward Beeman, with added peptin to aid digestion, Dentyne gum by dentist Franklin V. Canning (1889) and Chiclets (gum with caramel coating). In 1888, Adams also manufactured the first automatic gumball machine.
In 1915 William Wrigley Jr, the founder of the brand Wrigley's, had the idea of mailing three tablets of his mint gum to everyone listed in the guides of telephones of all the cities of the United States. The resounding success of the idea earned him the first place in sales for a long time.
Fruit
Manilkara zapota is also cultivated for its edible, plum-like fruit. Its pulp is brown, translucent and very sweet. The color of the shell is light brown, that of the pulp, light orange, and that of the seed, black.
In Mexico, this fruit is marketed under two names: chicozapote, simply zapote and chupeta, the latter word coming from Nahuatl and means honey sapote, precisely because it is the sweetest of the fruits produced by the trees of the Sapotaceae family.
In Guatemala it is also cultivated under the latter name and is widely marketed throughout the Guatemalan territory. Its wood is even used to make handicraft ornaments and sculptures with very different shapes: Mayan ruins, armadillos (in Guatemala: hueche), jaguars, toucans and many more shapes related to the diversity of Guatemalan culture and fauna..
In Venezuela the fruit is known by the name níspero and it is very common in western areas, such as the Zulia region. In the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Panama it is also called medlar.
In Asia its cultivation is widespread and the fruit is known as chikoo.
Full fruit and cut in half
Uses
The fruit is edible and a favorite in the tropical Americas. Gum from the rind is used to make chewing gum.
Medical Studies
Compounds extracted from the leaves showed antidiabetic, antioxidant, and hypocholesterolemic effects.
The acetone extract of the seeds has antibacterial activities, specifically against certain strains of the species Pseudomonas oleovorans and Vibrio cholerae. Also, according to several doctors, the tree Manilkara zapota contains a low level of serine (an amino acid found in proteins). This amino acid is found in chewing gum proteins.
A study analyzed the effect of the extract of the fruit on the activity of collagenase and elastase, two enzymes that are responsible for disintegrating, respectively, collagen and elastin in tissues; The results show that the activity of these enzymes is inhibited by the sapodilla extract, which may have repercussions in the treatment of some pathologies related to them and in the prevention of dermal photoaging.
Taxonomy
The species was initially described as Achras zapota by Carlos Linnaeus and published in Species Plantarum 2: 1190, in 1753, currently, it is both a synonym and basonym of this. Finally, it would be transferred to the genus Manilkara by Pieter van Royen in Blumea 7(2): 410, in 1953.
Etymology
Manilkara: Latinized generic name from the Malabar (or Malayam) word manil-kara, used as a vernacular name to designate the species Manilkara kauki, in the Malabar region of southwestern India, and reported by Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede.
zapota: epithet that comes from the Nahuatl word tzápotl; "sweet-tasting fruit", and alludes to the popular name of the fruit.
Common names
- Chicozapote de México, chiquizapote de México, mamey colorado de Cuba, mamey de Philippines, mamey de México, níspero de Nicaragua, níspero del Perú, níspero en el Caribe colombiano, níspero de Venezuela, sapote (pequeño) de las Antillas, sapote grande de las Antillas, sapotillo de las Antitillas, tezontzapotl