on the preceding Paper. 
163 
appear to have been led to suppose the nut may be the produce 
of Acliras sapota, or some allied species ; and you then describe 
under that name the fruit of a totally different tree, as will appear 
presently. Achras sapota , vel mammosa, is commonly called 
Mammee sapota, and is of Linnaeus, 6th class and first order, and 
natural order Dumosce. The tree is cultivated at the Havannah, 
but is rare in Jamaica. From the only one I knew there, I 
possess specimens of the curiously-formed seed, some of which 
accompany this letter. The fruit is oval-shaped, tapering at each 
end, and the edible part is a most delicious pulp ; the kernels of 
the seeds are used in making the liqueur called noyeau. Tn 
June 1815, a bucket-full of the fruit was brought off’ to a ship 
which called at the Havannah on her way to England, which the 
captain’s lady kindly distributed among the passengers, with 
a request that they would return the seeds. 
The fruit you describe is the Mammea Americana, or Mammee ; 
it is of Linnaeus, class Polyandria, and order Monogynia, and is 
the produce of a large forest-tree in Jamaica. The fruit is of 
coarse texture, rarely eaten, and never sought after ; it is quite 
round, five or six inches in diameter, with a smooth skin of a pale 
yellowish brown colour, of a very thick leathery nature, within 
which is an orange-coloured, firm, fleshy substance, about an inch 
in thickness, of a peculiar but not unpleasant flavour. The seeds 
are very large, hard, and rough, occupying all the central part of 
the fruit, about six to eight in number, and in shape of the 
natural divisions of an orange. Some confusion has doubtless 
arisen from the circumstance of this wild fruit, which is never 
cultivated, and no one thinks of providing for the table, being 
called Mammee, while the rare and exquisite fruit first named is 
called Mammee sapota ; when they differ much more from each 
other than the apple does from the pin e-apple. I may add, that 
the nut containing the Upis is not that of the sapodilla or plum- 
tree, of which there are two sorts, both very common in Jamaica: 
one is called the Spanish Plum, and the other the Hog Plum. 
The bully, or bullet- tree, from its extreme hardness, is a forest- 
tree of Jamaica. I only know it as a valuable timber, much used 
in mill-work and machinery. 
