Our fearless leader, Hank Ortiz, and our sales wiz, Dan DiRocco, both have Avocado trees that are starting to fruit, so ArborNote’s Tree of the Week is the Avocado Tree (Persea americana). It is native to the Americas, with archaeological evidence of early human avocado use dating back thousands of years across various regions of Central and South America. The oldest known avocado remains were discovered at Huaca Prieta, a preceramic site on the northern coast of Peru, where humans were consuming avocados as early as 10,500 years ago. The avocado’s large pit evolved millions of years ago to appeal to now-extinct giant megafauna, like the giant ground sloth. Although, botanically speaking, the avocado is technically a single-seeded berry! Avocado trees exhibit a unique behavior called “synchronous dichogamy,” meaning every individual flower has both male and female organs, but they mature at different times. A flower opens as a female for half a day, closes for the night, and reopens as a male the following afternoon.