Landscape Uses:
	Specimen tree or shrub in the Florida Keys. Buffer plantings.
Ecological Restoration Notes:
	A fairly common element of the upland side of the ecotone between tidal swamps and rockland hammocks in the Florida Keys. Rare elsewhere.
Availability:
	Grown by one or two native plant nurseries in South Florida. Available in Key West at Key West Botanical Garden.
Description:
	Small to medium tree or large shrub with a dense rounded crown. Trunks usually short, gnarled to 18 inches in diameter, but usually much less in South Florida. Bark gray to reddish-brown, deeply fissured and breaking into small plates. Leaves think, leathery, clustered toward the ends of the twigs.
Height:
	Typically 10-15 feet in height; to 21 feet in South Florida. Usually as broad as tall or broader.
Growth Rate:
	Slow.
Range:
	Monroe County Keys, Miami-Dade and Collier counties; Bahamas. In Miami-Dade County, native to islands in and around Elliott Key in Biscayne National Park and the extreme southern mainland along the shores of Florida Bay in Everglades National Park; collected once in Collier County by J.R. Lorenz in what is now the Cape Romano - Ten Thousand Islands Aquatic Preserve. For a digitized image of Elbert Little's Florida range map, visit the Exploring Florida website.
Habitats:
	Coastal hammocks and pine rocklands.
Soils:
	Moist to rarely inundated, well-drained to moderately well-drained limestone soils, with humusy top layer.
Nutritional Requirements:
	Moderate; can grow in nutrient poor soils, but needs some organic content to thrive.
Salt Water Tolerance:
	Moderate; tolerates brackish water or occasional inundation by salt water.
Salt Wind Tolerance:
	Low; salt wind may burn the leaves.
Drought Tolerance:
	Moderate; generally requires moist soils, but tolerant of short periods of drought once established.
Light Requirements:
	Full sun.
Flower Color:
	Yellowish.
Flower Characteristics:
	Inconspicuous.
Flowering Season:
	All year; peak spring-summer.
Fruit:
	Light brown berry. Edible.
Wildlife and Ecology:
	Provides food and cover for wildlife.
Horticultural Notes:
	Can be grown from seed.
Comments:
	Related to the commercially grown sapodilla (Manilkara zapota). It is listed as threatened by the state of Florida.