The New Student's Reference Work/Mango

Man′go, a fruit of the genus Mangifera, which contains 27 species of tropical Asiatic MANGO trees. M. Indica yields the common mango and is cultivated throughout the tropics. The fruit is kidney-shaped, four or five inches long, with smooth, pale green to reddish skin, and a seed almost as long as the fruit, which has a rough and fibrous shell. There is a strong suggestion of turpentine about the mango; usually a taste for the fruit has to be cultivated. It has been described as tasting like a “ball of cotton soaked in turpentine and molasses.” In the tropics the mango is a staple article of food during the hot months, more than 130 varieties being cultivated in India alone. In some of the poorer varieties the pulp is full of fiber. The mango is extensively cultivated in the West Indies and more sparsely in southern Florida and California. The tree is an evergreen, grows from 30 to 40 feet high, and has a wealth of foliage.