Pouteria campechiana is an evergreen tree native to, and cultivated in, southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador. It is cultivated in other countries, such as India, Costa Rica, Brazil, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Australia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and the Philippines. The edible part of the tree is its fruit, which is colloquially known as an egg fruit.
The canistel grows up to 10 m (33 ft) high, and produces orange-yellow fruit, also called yellow sapote, up to 7 cm (2.8 in) long, which are edible raw. Canistel flesh is sweet, with a texture often compared to that of a hard-boiled egg yolk, hence its colloquial name "eggfruit". It is closely related to the lucuma, mamey sapote, and abiu.