Species
+

Pouteria sapota (Jacq.) H.E.Moore & Stearn

Bolom, Breiapfel, Chicle, Große Sapote

Climate known 53 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Pouteria sapota, the mamey sapote, is a species of tree native to Central America and southern Mexico. It is now cultivated throughout Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, as well as in Florida and parts of South America. Its fruit is eaten raw in many Latin American countries, and is added to smoothies, milkshakes, ice cream, and other foods.

Text from Wikipedia, “Pouteria sapota”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Pouteria

Pouteria is a genus of flowering trees in the gutta-percha family, Sapotaceae. The genus is widespread throughout the tropical Americas, with outlier species in Cameroon and Malesia. It includes the green sapote, the mamey sapote, and the abiu. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Pouteria”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Sapotaceae
Described by
(Jacq.) H.E.Moore & Stearn
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +10
Wild records
518 in range· 337 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Apr, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1928mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 318 mm (CHELSA)
Light
24–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to October in the northern hemisphere (June to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1928 mm a year, wettest September at 318 mm, driest March at 43 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 16.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Achras mammosa Bonpl.; Achras mammosa Bonpl. ex Miq.; Bassia jussaei Griseb.; Calocarpum huastecanum Gilly; Calocarpum mammosum subsp. bonplandii (Kunth) Pierre and 17 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to October in the northern hemisphere (June to October at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1394 mm of 1928 mm) falls in June to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 25.3 °C against a yearly mean of 24.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to April.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1928 mm a year, wettest September at 318 mm, driest March at 43 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1928 mm a year at the habitat, 1394 mm of it June to October. Wettest month September at 318 mm, driest March at 43 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1135 mm to 3339 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 21, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 16.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 16.2 °C, the absolute minimum 12.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 18.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells 11.9 °C to 22.5 °C), warmest day 30.0 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 26 °C in Jan to 30 °C in Apr; mean night from 18 °C in Jan to 23 °C in May. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1928 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 402 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 12.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°36.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)12.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 24–40RH 60–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 402 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C26 / 21–2927 / 23–3129 / 25–3230 / 26–3430 / 26–3429 / 25–3228 / 24–3228 / 24–3228 / 24–3127 / 23–3027 / 22–2926 / 21–29
Night °C18 / 12–2319 / 12–2320 / 14–2321 / 15–2423 / 16–2523 / 17–2522 / 17–2422 / 17–2422 / 17–2421 / 16–2420 / 14–2319 / 13–23
Rain mm61 / 12–14246 / 10–10743 / 10–7753 / 23–117127 / 72–302274 / 163–427277 / 155–463286 / 160–505318 / 196–549239 / 108–423124 / 33–30080 / 11–204
DLI26 / 22–3431 / 27–3936 / 34–4340 / 36–4539 / 32–4335 / 29–3935 / 29–4035 / 30–3931 / 28–3529 / 26–3226 / 24–3324 / 21–32
RH %65 / 55–7063 / 55–6860 / 54–6660 / 54–6663 / 56–6867 / 62–7167 / 61–7267 / 62–7269 / 64–7368 / 62–7266 / 59–7166 / 57–70

Each figure is the median across the 402 grid cells holding the 507 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1529:1889 (13.525, -85.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 12.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 402 distinct grid cells holding the 507 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1529:1889 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 13.50_-85.625, lapse-corrected -127 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 468 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama· introduced: Cambodia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker17.25, -94.611 · in the densest population, 381 records (74% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 518 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 337 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 28 km away. 147 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 11 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 518 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Pouteria sapotaPouteria sapotaPouteria sapotaPouteria sapotaPouteria sapotaPouteria sapotaPouteria sapotaPouteria sapota

Photographs: (c) Alexis López Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) jlsnaddon, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Sebastián de Jesús Herrera Buenfil, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Carlos Domínguez-Rodríguez, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Pouteria sapota, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Small rodents as significant dispersers of tree seeds in a Neotropical forest
Steven W. Brewer, Marcel Rejmánek (1999) · Journal of Vegetation Science
Analysis of Polyphenolic Antioxidants from the Fruits of Three Pouteria Species by Selected Ion Monitoring Liquid Chromatography−Mass Spectrometry
Jun Ma, Hui Yang, Margaret J. Basile, Edward J. Kennelly (2004) · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Purification and partial biochemical characterization of polyphenol oxidase from mamey (Pouteria sapota)
Gisela Palma‐Orozco, Alicia Ortiz‐Moreno, Lidia Dorantes‐Álvarez, José G. Sampedro (2010) · Phytochemistry
Phytochemical and antioxidant characterization of mamey (Pouteria sapota Jacq. H.E. Moore & Stearn) fruit
Elhadi M. Yahia, Fabiola Gutiérrez‐Orozco, Claudia Arvizu-de Leon (2010) · Food Research International
Postharvest physiology and technology of sapote mamey fruit (Pouteria sapota (Jacq.) H.E. Moore & Stearn)
Irán Alia‐Tejacal, Ramón Villanueva-Arce, Clara Pelayo‐Zaldívar, María Teresa Colinas-León (2007) · Postharvest Biology and Technology
DIVERSIDAD DE MAMÍFEROS EN CAFETALES Y SELVA MEDIANA DE LAS CAÑADAS DE LA SELVA LACANDONA, CHIAPAS, MÉXICO
Laura E. Cruz-Lara, Consuelo Lorenzo, Lorena Soto, Eduardo J. Naranjo (2004) · ACTA ZOOLÓGICA MEXICANA (N S )
Carotenoids from mamey (Pouteria sapota) and carrot (Daucus carota) increase the oxidative stress resistance of Caenorhabditis elegans
Marco Antonio González-Peña, José Daniel Lozada‐Ramírez, Ana Ortega‐Regules (2021) · Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports
Soluble phenols and antioxidant activity in mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota) fruits in postharvest
A Torres-Rodríguez, Yolanda Salinas‐Moreno, Salvador Valle‐Guadarrama, Irán Alia‐Tejacal (2011) · Food Research International
Diversidad de mamíferos en cafetales y selva mediana de las cañadas de la Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, México
Laura Elena Cruz Lara (2002) · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas)
Dielectric properties of guava, mamey sapote, prickly pears, and Nopal in the microwave range
Tejinder Kaur, José‐Luis Olvera‐Cervantes, Alonso Corona‐Chávez, R. Rojas-Laguna (2016) · International Journal of Food Properties
Sapotexanthin, an A-Provitamin Carotenoid from Red Mamey (Pouteria sapota)
Enrique Murillo, Reinaldo McLean, George Britton, Attila Agócs (2011) · Journal of Natural Products

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Pouteria 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 100 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.