Chirimoya: the fruit Acosta called Manjar Blanco, whose homeland its own geneticists still dispute, and whose largest producer today is Spain

Acosta in 1590 calls the anona soft and white as butter and, to some, the best fruit of the Indies — without once writing chirimoya. Where the tree came from is still disputed: a 1,504-tree survey puts the highest diversity in Cajamarca, in northern Peru, while marker work summarised by a 2024 genome paper points to Mesoamerica. The last leg is not disputed: the fruit reached Spain between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and Spain now grows more of it than anywhere.