Amazon Quiz (July 12): In which country is the tree of this fruit the national tree?
India
Bangladesh
Portugal
Sri Lanka
Answer: Bangladesh
Mango is a stone fruit produced by the tropical tree Mangifera indica, which is said to have originated between northwest Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. Since ancient times, M. indica has been cultivated throughout South and Southeast Asia, resulting in two types of current mango cultivars: “Indian type” and “Southeast Asian type.” Other Mangifera species yield edible fruits known as “mangoes,” the majority of which are found in the Malesian ecoregion.
Mango cultivars number in the hundreds worldwide. Mango fruit varies in size, shape, taste, skin colour, and flesh colour, which can be pale yellow, gold, green, or orange depending on the cultivar. The mango is India’s, Pakistan’s, and the Philippines’ national fruit, while the mango tree is Bangladesh’s national tree.
The English word ‘mango’ was derived from the Portuguese manga and the Malay term mangga, which was used for the fruit as early as the 1580s and the tree by the 1670s. This, in turn, is derived from the Tamil term mankay, which means “unripe mango.”
Mangoes originated in the area bounded by northern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. The mango is thought to be an evolutionary anachronism, as seed transmission was formerly carried out by a now-extinct evolutionary forager, such as a megafauna animal.
Mangoes evolved into two genetically distinct groups from their point of origin: the subtropical Indian group and the tropical Southeast Asian group. The Indian group is distinguished by monoembryonic fruits, whereas the Southeast Asian group is distinguished by polyembryonic fruits.
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