Diospyros nigra Diospyros nigra Diospyros nigra, the black sapote, is a species of persimmon. Common names include chocolate pudding fruit, black soapapple and (in Spanish) zapote prieto. The tropical fruit tree is native to eastern Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and into Colombia. The common name sapote refers to any soft, edible fruit. Black sapote is not related to white sapote nor mamey sapote. Mature trees can grow to over in height and are evergreen. It is frost sensitive but can tolerate light frosts. The leaves are elliptic-oblong, tapered at both ends, dark green, glossy and long. Some trees bear only male
Genetically modified tomato cold and drought tolerance in transgenic "Arabidopsis thaliana" plants, was inserted into the tomato. This resulted in increased drought tolerance, but did not appear to have any effect on cold tolerance. Overexpressing a vacuolar Na/H antiport ("AtNHX1") from "A. thaliana" lead to salt accumulating in the leaves of the plants, but not in the fruit and allowed them to grow more in salt solutions than wildtype plants. They were the first salt-tolerant, edible plants ever created. Tobacco osmotic genes overexpressed in tomatoes produced plants that held a higher water content than wildtype plants increasing tolerance to drought and salt stress.