The Avocado!  Picture courtesy of Paco Higaredo

Thanks for visiting my website dedicated to the delicious and nutritious avocado, also known by its Latin name, Persea americana, which literally translates to Avocado American. The avocado was given this name due to the fact that the first avocado tree was discovered in the Americas.

Some of you may know avocado by one of its nicknames such as the alligator pear or the butter pear. There are many different nicknames for the avocado, possibly because there are around 500 different varieties of avocados around the world!

Avocado trees are evergreen trees that grow to be about 30 to 40 feet tall, and about 30 feet wide. They posses green, elliptical shaped leaves that are arranged in alternation and are four to eight inches in length. The avocados produced are round or oval in shape, with green or purple coverings. 

One interesting trait of the avocado is the point in time at which it ripens. Avocados are called climacteric fruits. These types of fruit grow to maturity on the tree, are harvested, and ripen off of the tree. This has benefits for farmers because the fruit can remain on the tree for months, until they decide to harvest, without ripening. It also has benefits for those purchasing avocados from markets, because the freshly picked avocados are stored in freezers to prevent ripening until purchased, where they take a few days to ripen at room temperature.

Avocados are great for your health, check out why at the Nutrition page. Thinking about trying your hand at avocado cultivation? Head to the Reproduction page to see where to begin, or quiz yourself or your friends to see if you knew any of these interesting facts at the Fun Facts page. There are so many cool things to learn about the Avocado, use the tabs to the left to navigate freely, or you can start from the beginning with Classification.

Take a side trip to visit some of my classmates webpages at www.MultipleOrganisms.net if you're interested in learning more about various organisms, or head to www.uwlax.edu to check out my University homepage.

Photographs in the banner in order from left to right: A beautiful photograph of a hillside avocado orchard, courtesy of www.pacohigareda.com. A great photograph of avocados growing from branches on avocado trees, photo courtesy of www.commons.wikimedia.org. A nice close up photograph of an open avocado, focusing on the inner fruit and the pit, courtesy of http://www.facebook.com/#!/avocadosfrommexico.