CALIFORNIA AVOCADO ASSOCIATION 



115 



consider that the fruit is mature and ready for picking when the tree comes 

 into bloom. It is better to allow the fruit to remain on the tree several 

 months longer, as its flavor becomes much richer; but the appearance of 

 flowers is considered to indicate the earhest moment at which the fruit can 

 be picked, if it is to ripen properly, without shrivelling, and possess reason- 

 ably rich flavor. 



The maturity of certain varieties is indicated by the appearance of 

 purple color upon the fruit, but fully half of the avocados found in Guate- 

 mala are green in color when mature and there is no reliable indication of 

 maturity, unless it be the appearance of flowers upon the tree. 



The Fruit 



We now come to a consideration of the fruit itself, and I believe it 

 will interest the horticulturists of California and Florida to know some- 

 thing of the range of variation which occurs in Guatemala in the principal 

 fruit characters. I have made an effort to observe the extreme range, and 

 also to note the average of each character. In the United States we are 

 already familiar with a certain amount of variation in the Guatemalan avo- 

 cados; it is interesting to compare the variations known to us with those 

 which occur in Guatemala, especially where they concern characters of 

 marked commercial importance, such as the season of ripening and the 

 quality of the fruit. 



In northern Guatemala it is a common occurrence to find avocado 

 trees growing in a semi-wild state. One might almost infer that they were 

 truly indigenous, yet after the most careful investigation which I could 

 make I was unable to reach this conclusion. The region in question has 

 been so many centuries under cultivation, and the forest has been cleared 

 away so many times to make room for maize fields, that one hesitates to 

 assume that any tree not common in the most infrequented places is truly 

 indigenous. I have seen avocado trees in the edge of the forest, but the 

 thought has always arisen in my mind that a seed might have been dropped 

 there by some passing Indian. We must consider, then, that the native 

 home of the Guatemalan avocado has not certainly been determined up to 

 the present time; I am strongly inclined to suspect that it may be in ex- 

 treme northern Guatemala or across the Mexican frontier in the states of 

 Chiapas and Tabasco, but this remains to be proved. But what I started 

 out to say was this: semi-wild avocado trees, those growing in the edge of 

 the forest or in abandoned places throughout the mountains of northern 

 Guatemala, where the most primitive forms of the Guatemalan avocado ap- 

 pear to occur, nearly always produce fruits of round form (Plate VIII, 

 Fig. 13). I believe it almost safe to assume that the primitive form of the 

 Guatemalan avocado is round, and that the pear shaped and elongated 

 forms have arisen in cultivation. In the principal avocado regions of 

 Guatemala, such as Antigua and San Cristobal Verapaz, round and pear- 

 shaped fruits are about equally common. Extremely slender ones are rare; 

 the broadly pear-shaped fruits are very common. The majority of small 

 fruits are round. Oval and elliptical forms are not rare, but are less com- 

 mon than the round and pyriform. It can thus be seen that we already 

 have, in the United States, practically the entire range which this race ex- 

 hibits with regard to shape. 



In size we also have approximately the same range of variation which 



