Avocado
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 General view of an adult tree. Maui Island, Hawaii, USA |
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Avocado
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| Persea americana Mill., 1768 | ||||||||||||||||
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Avocado,or Perseus of america[2] (Latin: Persēa americāna),is an evergreen fruit plant; a species of the genus Perseaof the familyLauraceae, the type species of the genus [3].
An important fruit crop. The fruits of the plant are also called avocados:their flesh is rich in vitamins and important minerals. In addition to fruits, wood is used, which goes to the manufacture of furniture and is used as a building material. Earlier in the Russian language, the names of the alligator pear[4] and agcat[5] were also used to refer to this plant.
Description[edit | edit code]
Avocado is a fast-growing tree, reaching a height of 20 m. The trunk is usually straight, strongly branched.
The leaves are elliptical, up to 35 cmlong. Fall all year round[6].
The flowers are nondescript, small, greenish, double-sexed, are in the axils of the leaves[6].
The fruit is a single-seeded berry [7] pear-shaped, ellipsoidal or spherical in shape. The length of the mature fruit is from 5 to 20 cm,the weight is from 50 g to 1.8 kg. The skin of the fruit is hard, in immature fruits - dark green, some time after ripening it turns black. The flesh of a mature fruit has a green or yellow-green color, oily, contains a lot of fat. In the center of the fruit is a large seed.
Cultivation[edit | edit code]
Cultivation
History of cultivation
According to archaeological data, avocados were cultivated as early as the third millennium BC[1]. The Aztecs called it ahuacatl (ast. Āhuacatl,"forest oil").
In 1553, avocado (in the form of "aguacate"[2])was first mentioned in literature - in the book"Chronicle of Peru"by Pedro Ciesa de León