Sapodilla
Manilkara zapota
Found in rockland hammocks, disturbed upland areas. FloraQuest, phone app (app page) What its natural habitat tells you
Not native to Florida. How scores work Is it native here?
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Do not plant. Listed invasive in Florida.
At a glance
Not yet recorded · Height · Spread · Light · Soil · Life cycle · Leaves · Bloom
This plant is missing most of its facts, so Quercus is looking them up in old botany books.
Recorded in 8 Florida counties.
Natural habitats
Places it grows wild. Not a planting requirement. Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.
Dense, evergreen groves of live oak, magnolia and other hardwoods in the southern Coastal Plain, from dry oak domes to wet hydric hammocks and south Florida's tropical hammocks; salt-shaped maritime hammocks are maritime forests.
Who uses this plant?
12CaterpillarsGenus host records with ranges including FL
Genus host records with ranges including FL · Manilkara
- Banisia argutulaSapodilla Borer Moth
- Banisia myrsusalisSapodilla Borer Moth
- Dichrorampha sapodillaSapodilla Pod Borer Moth
- Erinnyis elloEllo Sphinx
- Eumarozia malachitanaSculptured Moth
- Spodoptera latifasciaOrange-Striped Armyworm, Velvet Armyworm Moth
- Banisia furva
- Dichrorampha manilkara
- Eucosmophora manilkarae
- Eucosmophora sideroxylonella
Show all 12
- Milgithea trilinearis
- Zamagiria laidion
—BeesSoutheastern regional records
—Specialist beesPollen specialists
—BirdsRecorded genus food-resource interactions; not a state feeding claimPlant details
- Family
- Sapotaceae
Safety has not been reviewed for this plant; check toxicity and thorns before planting.
Conservation status
| Florida rank | SNA |
|---|---|
| Global rank | Not available |
| FL status | Not verified |
| Federal status | Not verified |
Native alternatives
Find natives for your gardenSources
- Atlas of Florida Plants
- Florida Invasive Species Council list
- NatureServe Explorer
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications