- The star apple's skin and rind is inedible.ICHIRO/Photodisc/Getty Images
The star apple tree was thought to be native to Central America, but botanists Paul Standley and Louis Williams discovered it is indigenous to the West Indies. A tropical tree that can reach 100 feet tall, the star apple's skin and rind are inedible. The fruit must be cut in half, revealing its star, and spooned out to eat. - Plants, animals, eubacteria, archaebacteria, fungi and protists are the six kingdoms of all living things. Star apple is in the plant kingdom, which includes flowering plants, mosses, ferns and all land plants. Plants make up more than 25,000 species, and they first appeared on the planet about 490 million years ago.
- Magnoliophyta includes land plants and refers to plants that have a true flower. This phylum uses pollination for reproduction, and all Magnoliophyta use double fertilization. These plants date back to the Cretaceous period.
- Star apple's class is called Magnoliopsida or dicots. There are 170,000 species in this class, including vines, woody stemmed plants and annuals. Some dicots have adventitious root system, as seen in monocots, and many have veined leaves.
- The order Ebenales consists of 1750 species and is mostly tropical. Woody, these plants have petals joined at the base in a cup or basal-tube formation. Chicle and ebony are other examples of this order.
- Trees and shrubs in the Sapotaceae family have a milky sap and reddish-dark hairs underneath their leaves. The 800 species have bisexual flowers and fruit berries. Examples of this family are green sapote and egg fruit.
- The genus Chrysophyllum contains tropical trees and shrubs. American and evergreen, this genus has two cotyledons in their seeds.
- Chrysophyllum cainito is the species and Latin name for star apple. Cainito means blazing star, and species is the last unit of classification. The species of a plant is also a common name or description.
