From the book
Fruits of Warm Climates
by Julia F. Morton
Mabolo
Diospyros blancoi A. DC.
EBENACEAE
A minor member of the
family Ebenaceae, more admired for its ornamental than its edible
value, the mabolo has appeared in literature for many years under the
illegitimate binomial Diospyros discolor Willd. In 1968, Dr. Richard Howard, Director of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, proposed the adoption of D. blancoi
A. DC., and this is now regarded as the correct botanical designation
for this species. The fruit is sometimes called velvet apple, or, in
India, peach bloom. In Malaya, it is buah mantega (butter fruit)–a term
now often applied to the avocado–, or buah sakhlat, or sagalat (scarlet
fruit). Mabolo (or mabulo) is the most common of the several Philippine
dialectal names. Another, kamagon, is rendered camagon in Spanish.
Plate LXII: MABOLO, Diospyros blancoi
Description
The mabolo varies in form from a small straggly tree with drooping
branches, to an erect, straight tree to 60 or even 100 ft (18-33 m),
with stout, black, furrowed trunk to 50 in (80 cm) thick. It is rather
slow-growing. The evergreen, alternate leaves, oblong, pointed at the
apex, rounded or pointed at the base, are 6 to 9 in (15-22.8 cm) long,
2 to 3 1/2 in (5-9 cm) wide; leathery, dark-green, smooth and glossy on
the upper surface, silvery-hairy underneath. New leaves are showy,
pale-green or pink and silky-hairy. The tubular, 4-lobed, waxy, faintly
fragrant blooms are short-stalked, creamy-white, downy. Male flowers
1/4 in (6 mm) wide, in small clusters, and female flowers, 1/2 in (12.5
mm) wide, and solitary, are borne on separate trees. Attractive and
curious, the oval or oblate fruit, 2 to 4 in (5-10 cm) wide, has thin,
pink, brownish, yellow, orange or purple-red skin, densely coated with
short, golden-brown or coppery hairs, and is capped at the base with a
dull-green, stiff calyx. The fruits are often borne in pairs, very
close together on opposite sides of a branch. A strong, unpleasant,
cheese-like odor is given off by the whole fruit but emanates from the
skin, for it is absent in the peeled flesh, which is whitish, firm,
mealy, somewhat like that of an overripe apple; moist but not very
juicy; of mild, more or less sweet flavor, suggesting a banana-flavored
apple. There may be 4 to 8 brown, smooth, wedge-shaped seeds, about 1
1/2 in (4 cm) long and 1 in (2.5 cm) wide, standing in a circle around
the central core, though the fruits are often completely seedless. Each
seed is covered with a whitish membrane that is transparent when fresh,
opaque when dried.
Origin and
Distribution
The
mabolo is indigenous to the low and medium altitude forests of the
Philippine Islands from the island of Luzon to the southernmost of the
Sulu Islands, and is commonly cultivated for its fruit and even more as
a shade tree for roadsides. The tree was introduced into Java and
Malaya, and, in 1881, into Calcutta and the Botanical Garden in
Singapore, though it existed in Singapore before that date. In recent
times, it has been decreasing in numbers in Malaya. It is only
occasionally planted in India and then mainly as an ornamental because
of the attractiveness of the foliage and the fruits.
Seeds were
sent to the United States Department of Agriculture by W.S. Lyon, of
the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture, in 1906, with a note of
admiration for the tree and the exterior of the fruit but not the
interior; still, more seeds were sent in 1909 and the seedlings thrived
at the Plant Introduction Station in Miami. There are occasional
specimens grown elsewhere in southern Florida and some scattered around
the Caribbean area, in Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad and the
Lancetilla Experimental Garden in Honduras where plants were received
from the Philippines in 1926 and seeds from Cuba in 1927. There are a
few in Bermuda and in Hawaii where the mabolo first fruited in 1928.
Nowhere has the mabolo gained the favor it enjoys in its homeland.
Varieties
Mabolo trees vary
in the degree of hairiness on the twigs and leaves. Burkill (in Malaya)
and Mendiola (in the Philippines) refer to mabolos with red and
copper-colored skin as distinct races. A race with purplish-red skin
and unusually sweet flavor was long ago introduced into Malaya. In
1921, budded trees of a superior seedless cultivar called 'Manila' were
shipped to the United States Department of Agriculture by P.J. Wester,
who was then Horticulturist in charge of the Manila Experiment Station.
The parent tree in the Philippines had a history of bearing crops of
oblate, sweet, juicy fruits, 80% of them seedless, 20% having 1 to 3
seeds. Another seedless Philippine cultivar was named 'Valesca'.
Mendiola
(1926) wrote that seedless mabolos "are easily distinguished from the
seedy ones as they are flatter. It is believed by some horticulturists
and growers that these seedless fruits come from branches that are bud
sports . . . it is impossible to confirm or deny this claim until it is
known how much parthenocarpy has to do with . . . these seedless forms
. . . the genus Diospyros is, in a number of cases, parthenocarpic."
Propagation
The tree is
generally grown from seeds. Shield-budding has been successfully
practiced in the Philippines and is the preferred means of perpetuating
superior types.
Cultivation
Male trees must
be planted near the female trees for effective pollination and fruit
production. The tree does best in loam but flourishes very well in
almost any soil with little care. It is rarely fertilized and seems to
need no protective spraying.
Season
In India, the mabolo
blooms in March and April and the fruits ripen in July and August. The
main season in Florida is June to September but occasional fruits may
be found on the tree at almost any time of the year.
Keeping
Quality
Investigators
in Hawaii studied carbon dioxide and ethylene production of mature
green and 5% red-colored mabolos. Mature-green fruits reached the
climacteric peak stage in 9 days; the slightly ripe fruits, in 5 days.
Food Uses
The surface fuzz
adheres tightly even when the fruit is ripe. Also, the skin, though
thin and pliable, is tough and papery when chewed. Therefore, the
fruits should be peeled before eating, and then kept in the
refrigerator for a few hours before serving. Then the odor, which is
mainly in the skin, will have largely dissipated.
Some people
slice or quarter the flesh, season with lime or lemon juice or
Grenadine sirup and serve fresh as dessert. The flesh is also diced and
combined with that of other fruits in salads. If stewed in sirup, the
flesh becomes fibrous and tough. Cut into strips and fried in butter,
it is crisp and fairly agreeable as a vegetable of the dasheen or taro
type appropriate for serving with ham, sausage or other spicy meat.
| Food
Value Per
100 g of Edible Portion* |
| Ordinary type | Seedless type |
| Calories
|
| 504 |
| Moisture
|
77.80 g | 71.95-86.04 g |
| Protein |
0.75 g | 0.82-2.79 g |
| Fat |
| 0.22-0.38 g |
| Carbohydrates | | (other) 5.49-6.12 g |
| Sugar |
11.47 g | (reducing) 6.25-18.52 g |
| Fiber |
| 0.74-1.76 g |
| Ash |
0.83 g | 0.43-1.08 g |
| Sulphuric Acid |
0.11 g | 316
mg |
| Malic Acid |
0.16 g | 178
mg |
| Phytin |
| 3.26% (on dry basis) |
| *Analyses made in the Philippines and India. |
|
The fruit is considered a fairly good source of iron and calcium and a good source of vitamin B.
Toxicity
The hairs may be somewhat irritating to sensitive skin.
Other Uses
Mabolo seedlings: Useful as rootstock on which to graft the Japanese persimmon.
Wood:
The sapwood is pinkish or reddish; may have gray markings. The
heartwood is streaked and mottled with gray and is sometimes all-black.
In the Philippines, it is carved into highly prized hair combs.
|
|