Category: Tree
Family: Anacardiaceae
Genus: Mangifera
species: indica
Origin: India
Size: 0 (min) to 100 (max)
Size Description:
Notes: The largest known fruit tree. Mango is a large evergreen tree that can reach 15 to 30 m tall. They are fast growing erect trees with slender to broad and rounded upright canopy that can be used for landscape and shade. The trees are long -lived with some still producing fruit at 300 years old. The tree is anchored by a long unbranched taproot can descend to a depth of 6-8 m plus a mass of feeder roots. The feeder roots send down anchor roots which penetrate the soil to a depth of 1.2 m and spread lateral as far as 7.5 m. The leaves are alternate, simple, leathery, oblong-lanceolate, 29-30 cm long X 3-5 cm wide on flowering branches, up to 50 cm on sterile branches. The young leaves are red, aging to shiny dark green above, lighter below, with yellow or white venation. The inflorescence is a much-branched panicle bearing many very small (4 mm) greenish white or pinkish flowers. Both male and bisexual flowers are borne on the same tree. The flowers are radially symmetrical, and usually have 5 petals, streaked with red. There is usually only 1 fertile stamen per flower; the 4 other stamens are sterile. The flower has a conspicuous 5-lobed disk between the petals and stamens. The fruit is an irregularly egg-shaped and slightly compressed fleshy drupe, 8-12 (-30) cm long, attached at the broadest end on a pendulous stalk. The skin is smooth greenish-yellow, sometimes tinged with red. The underlying yellow-orange flesh varies in quality from soft, sweet, juicy and fiber-free in high-quality selected (clonal) varieties to turpentine-flavored and fibrous in unselected (wild) seedlings. The single, compressed-ovoid seed is encased in the white fibrous inner layer of the fruit. Notes courtesy of the USDA Plant Database
Characteristics: