Avocado

The avocado, also called alligator pear, is an evergreen tree in the laurel family native to the Americas, with a range extending from Mexico to Peru across much of Central America and parts of northern and western South America. Archaeological evidence shows humans using avocados for thousands of years across Central and South America, prized for their large and unusually oily fruit, which is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed. Genome sequencing has shown that the evolution of avocados was shaped by polyploidy events and that commercial varieties have a hybrid origin; the trees are partly self-pollinating and are often propagated through grafting to maintain consistent fruit output.