Annona are tropical trees or shrubs : taprooted, evergreen or semideciduous. They grow at lower altitudes of 0-1,500 m (0-4,900 ft) in areas of Central America with alternating seasons. With a thin, fissured and scaly bark, the trunks show their age! The flowers have numerous stamens and pistils. The three or four deciduous sepals are usually smaller than the outer petals: there are 6-8 petals arranged in two whorls, those in the outer whorls are larger and do not overlap. Each flower produces a single fruit, ellipsoidal in shape, but consisting of multiple individual small fruits : each fruit is covered by polygonal small plates.
Annona has been cultivated in the Yautepec River region of Mexico since ca. 1000 BCE. Probably for the fruit, since it offers an edible custard-like white flesh. While originating in Central America, Annona are found in other locations too. They grow in the Caribbean. The fruit is known as cachiment in Martinique.
Numerous other languages also have a name for this fruit, evidence for extremely widespread plant dispersal, into Central and South America, Eastern and Western Africa, India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, … In most of the countries where the plant is cultivated, the fruit is used to make fresh fruit juices, ice-creams and smoothies, often proposed by street food vendors.
Dispersal of plants usually occurs from the fruit being eaten by birds and from the seeds in their droppings. Are there bird species with such long-range migrations that could have disseminated Annonas throughout so many tropical regions?
None. Mankind was responsible. How? With respect to Asia, it was the galleon trade that Spaniards conducted during the sixteenth century between Acapulco and Manila. This trans-Pacific maritime route was established in 1565 and lasted until 1815.
Trade with Ming China via Manila was a major source of revenue for the Spanish Crown. Two or more ships would set sail annually from each port. The Manila-Acapulco voyage would take about four months. The ships were very large vessels, averaging 1,700-2,000 tons, built of Philippine hardwoods with a capacity of a thousand passengers.
Upon reaching Acapulco the cargoes were transported by land across Mexico to the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, where they were loaded onto the Spanish treasure fleet bound for Spain.