Mutant potato

Does anyone know what plant this is? It looks somewhat like a small mango tree but the fruit can only be described as a potato with spots. Should we cut the tree down?

On one hand, the tree provides some shade to the carpark area, but the weird potato-fruit seems to give off a faint, sickly sweet scent, and tends to turn a little mushy after falling to ground.

Mutant potato tree at the edge of the parking area.

Mutant potato growing on the tree.

It's really not a handsome-looking fruit, is it?

Maybe this is a good opportunity to test the extent of Google's reach into the world of obscure botany. For a start, typing "mutant potato" into the Google search bar calls up images of strangely happy farmers holding up their gnarly potatoes, plus the odd combinations of Mr Potato Head. Alright then, let's try "potato with spots" next. Whoa! Those are some really nasty-looking spuds.

Not intending to spend too much time labouring over this, the third and final attempt was "fruit that looks like potato with spots" and hey presto! Amongst the search results are a handful of photos, one showing a whole heap of these mutant potatoes, and another one with mutant potatoes stacked full in a rattan basket, like a tropical fruit basket sitting in your hotel room.

Oola.com lists the fruit as one of "18 Craziest Tropical Fruits from Asia" alongside such exotic species as durians, lychees, longans, starfruits, and the like. Oola goes on to say that "...in Thai cuisine its leaves are used as vegetables and the fruit as a salad ingredient. The Polynesians also utilized the fruit to treat menstrual cramps." Well, that's an idea for the children's cookery lessons (the salad, that is).

Eyechow.com politely describes it as a "bizarre looking milky white bumpy potato like fruit" and hints that "these fruits are not eaten, but rather ingested or applied as herbal medicine." They also helpfully suggest that the fruits are "great ammunition for throwing at your friends when you are a mischievous kid."

That last sentence more or less seals the deal. You're a keeper, Noni tree (or more scientifically, morinda citrifolia), although be warned that you're on thin ice here. After all, the odds are stacked against you when your fruit is also known as "cheese fruit" or "vomit fruit".