Looks like Pachira aquatica, aka Guiana Chesnut, Malabar Chestnut.
That there is what you call a Mango tree. The fruit ought to be ripe in the next few weeks or so and then you will have delicious mangoes!
How I know that:
When I lived in Ft. Lauderdale was the first time I lived alone in my own little place. My apartment was a converted 1-car garage behind this house (just off Las Olas), with a big privacy fence surrounding both. The owner had paved the little courtyard and put a hot tub out there for all his tenants to use – the house was split into two apartments, so he had three tenants on one property.
So I’m in my new place, living alone for the first time, in the big city, and one night I hear this horrible crash about 3 a.m. I sit bolt upright in bed, shaking and terrified. W.T.F. is going on? A few minutes later, I hear another crash. I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway, shouting at nothing, “What IS that?”
After a couple days, I figured it out. There was a mango tree in the courtyard and the damn mangoes were ripe and dropping off the tree… on to my aluminum awnings, which made a terrible racket at 3 in the morning.
Trust me, I would know a mango tree at 500 paces. That’s what you’ve got.
I don’t think the shape of the fruit is right for a mango tree; most mangoes have more rounded ends, whereas these ones are pretty pointy.
Which is a shame, because mango trees are awesome. Back when I lived in St. Pete, there was one in a vacant lot near where I lived. Whenever I walked past it, I made sure to check if there were any accessible ripe mangoes hanging off it. I didn’t get too many, but those I did get were damn tasty.
I’m pretty certain **jayjay **nailed it in one. It certainly isn’t a mango, which has soft fruits, not woody ones, and has simple leaves, not palmately compound leaves. *Pachira *is available in the nursery trade in south Florida, and has been used commonly for landscape plantings. There aren’t many trees with that leaf form (except palms, of course - hence the name ‘palm-ate’) so that narrows down the possibilities quite a bit.
By the way, mango isn’t for everyone, either. It’s in the same plant family (Anacardiaceae) as poison ivy, and is a powerful contact allergen for many people (including me!). Some folks with a sensitivity can eat it if someone else peels the fruit. Others (me again!) have an anaphylactic reaction to a mere taste.
That’s interesting, CannyDan, thanks for sharing. I had no idea.
I always thought that mangoes were proof the God’s love us and want us to be happy!
Also, it is my personal opinion that the way mangoes were intended to be eaten was standing waist deep in the ocean!
Beer is proof that God loves us, mangoes is proof that he wants us to be regular.
elbows, there are lots of things that are great to do waist deep in the ocean. Some of those things involve food.
Lukeinva, for some of us, mangos are proof that the gods are conspiring to cause us a horrible demise through suffocation by pulmonary edema, brought on by consuming or even tasting a fruit that conceals its deadly hostility to random strangers beneath a luscious and attractive appearance.
Thanks, all.