The Avocado Essay -- Botany

The tout ensembleigator pearThe avocado pear is a member of the Laurel family, Lauraceae. Other members of this family include sugariness bay, cinnamon, camphor and sassafras. In telephone exchange the States several wild species of Persea grow. It has been think that cultivated forms must have been developed in Mexico and Guatemala at a very early stage of mans memorial. Two native names for the avocado are still used in America. The nahuatel term was ahua-cacua-huitle from which other Central American names like ahuacatl (which is the common Aztec idiom) alcuahte and aquacate have been either derived or shortened. Corruptions of the original name include abacata (Portugese) and alligator (English) pear. In South America the fruit is called Palta derived from the Indian tribe of Ecuador inhabiting the province Palta. Archeological diggings quiz it to have been introduced into the Tehuacan area of S. Central Mexico before 7000 possibly as foresightful as 10,000 BC from a more humid habitat. Remains of avocados came from around all levels of the Coxatlan cave, beginning with the phase labeled Ajverado (before ?000 BC). The influence of picking on fruit size is not evident until the Santa Maria phase, represented by artifacts from between 900-200 BC. There was evidence that the tree was not only in cultivation, but that it had been actively selected for increase in the fruits size sufficiently retentive to prevent the large fruited forms from being completely swamped by the wild, small fruited forms since a System of open pollination must have prevailed at the time. Since it takes slightly seven years for a seedling avocado to bear fruit and the trees prevent to bear for about 70 years or longer, the period of selection prior to the demonstration of larger cotyle... ...estroys small roots and can exhaust a plant. Avocados have had an important role to play in the history of man since men started leaving some sort of foraging trail. In the last 100 y ears the evolution of the tree as a crop plant has proven to reward us with a divers(prenominal) selection of potential traits which will be exploited to their fullest potential, if we are all lucky. References The Prehistory of the Tehuacan Valley Vol. I, Douglas S. Byers, 1967. pg 230-240. Tropical Crops, Purseglove, 1974. pg 193-198. Handbook of Tropical Food Crops, Franklin W. Martin, 1984. pg 247-249. digestible Plants of the World, E. Lewis Sturtevant, 1972. pg 414. Useful Plants of Neotropical Origin and Their Wild Relatives, Heinz Brucher, 1985. pg 229-231. Useful Plants of Brazil, Mors and Rizzini, 1966. pg 25. Origin of Cultivated Plants, DeCandolle, 1959. pg 292.