Cannonball Tree

Canopy trees. Leaves born in apical whorls of 7-40 leaves, medium to large-sized (8-30 cm long). Inflorescences cauliflorous, usually racemes or infrequently once-branched paniculate arrangements of racemes. Flowers zygomorphic. Sepals 6. Petals 6. Androecium prolonged on one side into a flat hood; staminodes anther-bearing. Ovary 6-locular; ovules numerous. Fruit indehiscent, dropping from tree at maturity, spherical or nearly so, pericarp fragile, often cracking when fruit hits ground. Seeds 10-15 mm long, numerous, ovate to lenticular, embedded in pulp which oxidizes bluish-green when exposed to air; dry pulp breaks into 6 segments.

Couroupita is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lecythidaceae first described as a genus in 1775. It is native to tropical South America and Central America.

Species Couroupita guianensis - Cannonball tree -Guyana, Colombia, Ecuador east to Amapá and south to Bolivia; naturalized in the West Indies as well as in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Andaman & Nicobar Couroupita nicaraguarensis – Bala de cañón, coco de mono, paraíso, zapote de mico, or zapote de mono -Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama Couroupita subsessilis - northern Brazil, northern Peru