Mango

a tropical fruit eaten from the hand or sliced and served like tomatoes. The fruit is four to five inches long. It has a smooth, soft, yellow or red skin, and a single seed almost as long as the fruit. The mango is a favorite fruit at Bombay. Beginners say a common mango "tastes like a ball of cotton soaked in turpentine and molasses." Partisans of the fruit claim that the "custard-like pulp combines the fragrance of the apricot and the pineapple." Though the mango tree is an Asiatic species, it is cultivated extensively in the West Indies. It was a promising fruit tree in Florida prior to the hard winter of 1885-6. Botanically, the mango tree is related to the sumac. The fruit is a pulpy, juicy drupe. The bark and leaves are rich in tannin.