The Avocado

The Avocado

The avocado is a member of the Laurel family, Lauraceae. Other members of this family include sweet bay, cinnamon, camphor and sassafras. In Central America several wild species of Persea grow. It has been concluded that cultivated forms must have been developed in Mexico and Guatemala at a very early stage of mans history.

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 prove it to have been introduced into the Tehuacan area of S. Central Mexico before 7000 possibly as long as 10,000 BC; from a more humid habitat. Remains of avocados came from almost all levels of the Coxatlan cave, beginning with the phase labeled Ajverado (before ?000 BC). The influence of selection 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 long 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 about seven years for a seedling avocado to bear fruit and the trees continue to bear for about 70 years or longer, the period of selection prior to the demonstration of larger cotyle...

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...estroys small roots and can kill 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 years the evolution of the tree as a crop plant has proven to reward us with a diverse 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.

Edible 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.