THE MANGOS OF CUBA. 



Wilson Popenoe, Washington, D. C 



Cuba must be numbered among those tropical countries in which 

 the mango is King of Fruits. Whether one grants that it is the 

 finest fruit in the island and there is no lack of Cubans who will 

 affirm this to be a fact one is forced to admit that it is by far the 

 most abundant. It springs up on all sides, wherever a seed chances 

 to fall upon favorable ground, forming a large, handsome tree which 

 embellishes the landscape and provides in the summer months a 

 wealth of luscious fruit. 



It is but natural that there should be found, among the innumer- 

 able seedling trees scattered over the island, a number of distinct 

 races and types. It has long been recognized, in certain parts of 

 the tropics, that many seedling mangos come more or less "true to 

 type" when propagated from seed, and because of this fact the 

 natives have learned to recognize certain of the best defined types 

 and have distinguished them with varietal names. With the avo- 

 cado, another fruit extensivel}' grown in Cuba, this is not the case ; 

 seedling forms are innumerable, but names are not used to dis- 

 tinguish the different ones, probably because it has been learned 

 that the offspring of a superior tree do not reproduce the charac- 

 teristics of the parent to any extent, and because no well defined 

 classes of seedlings can be pointed out. 



With mangos a different state of affairs obtains. The best known 

 seedling races and types, such as mango* manga amarilla and 

 manga blanca, are recognizable by anyone who has the least 

 familiarity with the fruit, and there can be do doubt but that seed- 

 lings of these classes will, in the majority of cases, reproduce the 

 characteristics of the parent to a great enough extent to make them 

 recognizable as belonging to the same type as the parent. We must 

 admit the possibility, for the time being, that occasional seedlings 

 may depart from the type, perhaps because of cross pollination, 

 perhaps because of some other cause. Occasional aberrant forms 

 are found in Cuba which can only be accounted for by some such 

 explanation as cross pollination. On the whole, however, it can be 

 considered that the various races and types described in this paper 



To those unfamiliar with, the popular classiflcation of mangos in Cuba, it may 

 seem peculiar that this name, which properly belongs to all fruits of Mangifera indica, 

 should be used to distinguish a race. It must be explained that the natives commonly 

 divide mangos into two classes, which they distinguish by the names of mango and 

 manga, the masculine and feminine forms of the word. It has been thought best, there- 

 fore, to retain this name in its Cuban application. 



