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Rediscovering Florigon: Florida’s Hidden Mango Treasure

Jan 2026   •   JOAN BROOKWELL (1987)   •   71

In a small Fort Lauderdale backyard nearly a century ago, an ordinary mango seed planted in the 1920s grew into something extraordinary. This wasn’t just another backyard tree. It became the heart of a special mango variety now known to aficionados as Florigon—a name that itself tells a story of place and heritage, blending Florida and Saigon to represent its roots.

Back in June 1987, a Sun-Sentinel Home & Garden feature captured the essence of mango lovers Bob and Mary Frances Heinemann and their reverence for the mango tree in their family’s yard. They called their collection “Mango Heaven,” and for good reason. The original Florigon tree—planted by Mary’s grandmother in 1924—had survived decades of South Florida weather, including the powerful 1926 hurricane that destroyed the family’s original home.

What distinguished Florigon from the fibrous, flavorless mangoes many people first encounter wasn’t just its survival. Florigon fruit was delicate and sweet with a smooth flesh—a stark contrast to the common “turpentine” mango that leaves a harsh, astringent memory for many who try it unripe or poorly handled. Florigon declines to be ordinary. Its fruit stays green until nearly ripe, then turns a consistent warm golden hue.

Florigon never hit commercial scale like some other Florida cultivars, but that’s part of its mystique. It remained a prized backyard favorite, shared among friends and those who seek out something special. Members of the Rare Fruit & Vegetable Council even tried propagating it by grafting cuttings from the original tree with mixed success, highlighting how unique and cherished it truly was.

Mango collectors and home orchardists today still look for nuggets like Florigon because they represent the living history of mango cultivation in the United States. Long before big groves or nursery catalogs became standard, family gardens and passionate growers were experimenting, selecting varieties that tasted better than anything brought in from overseas. Florigon stands among those early successes, a reminder that great fruit often comes from humble beginnings.

Florida itself has played an outsized role in American mango history since the 1800s, from early introductions of Indian varieties to becoming a center of diversity where many cultivars were developed and shared. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden But Florigon holds a special place in that story because it wasn’t bred in a lab or invented by a program—it was loved into existence by people who cared for the tree year after year.

For anyone building a mango collection, discovering and preserving stories like Florigon’s makes the journey richer. It’s not just about flavor profiles or rare genetics; it’s about the human stories behind the fruit—the growers, the gardens, the unexpected triumphs. If you ever have a chance to taste a truly tree-ripened Florigon, you’ll know why some collectors still whisper about Mango Heaven.

You can read the original writeup to the story of Flodigon" here on page one and two.