Diploknema butyracea (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H.J. Lam

Family: Sapotaceae

Synonyms

Aisandra butyracea (Roxb.) Baehni, Bassia butyracea Roxb., Madhuca butyracea (Roxb.) J.F. Macbride.

Vernacular names

• Indian butter tree, phulwara, buttery bassia (En).

Distribution

D. butyracea is distributed from northern India (including Assam), Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan to the Andaman Islands. It is occasionally cultivated, also elsewhere.

Uses

The seed yields a white fat resembling lard, used in cooking as a substitute for or adulterant of ghee, for burning and to make soap and candles. The fat remains solid and does not deteriorate during hot weather. Medicinally it is used to make an ointment, often perfumed with cloves or rose oil, to relieve rheumatic pains. The fruit pulp and the oil-cake are edible but saponins sometimes make the cake poisonous. It is used as vermifuge and it kills earthworms when applied as manure on golf courses. D. butyracea is used in soil conservation, for fodder and bee forage, and as mulch, fish poison, an insecticide and detergent. The flowers are rich in sugar and are processed into coarse sugar and alcoholic liquor. The wood is utilized as timber, traded with wood of other Diploknema species under the name "nyatoh".

Observations

Tree up to 25 m tall. Leaves alternate, usually clustered at apex of branchlets, sometimes scattered, simple; stipules lanceolate, about 5 mm long, caducous; petiole 2-4 cm long; blade elliptical-obovate-oblong, (6-)17-35 cm × (3-)8-17 cm, base cuneate, margin crenulate, apex with acumen 2-9 mm long; secondary veins 14-21, ascending, straight or curved, tertiary veins transverse, distinct below. Flowers solitary or in up to 6-flowered axillary clusters; pedicel 2-4.5 cm, in fruit up to 5 cm long; sepals (4-)5(-6), ovate, 9-15 mm × 6-10 mm, yellowish woolly outside, glabrous inside, but with scattered brownish woolly hairs in the apical part, or entirely ferruginously sericeous; corolla 1.5-2 cm long, lobes 8-10, oblong to spatulate, 7-10 mm × 4-8 mm, often irregularly crenulate; stamens 18-40, inserted at base of lobes, 9-12 mm long; ovary conoidal, about 2 mm × 5 mm, ferruginously sericeous, tapering into the style, 7-12-celled, each cell continuing into the style as a hollow vessel, base surrounded by an adnate, ferruginously tomentose disk; style terete or subangular, 1.5-5 cm long, glabrous, with 7-12 hollow vessels. Fruit an ovoid or cylindrical berry, 2-2.5 cm × 1-1.5 cm, generally pointed by a remaining portion of the style, smooth, pericarp fleshy, 1-3(-5)-seeded. Seed cylindrical to obovoid, differing in shape according to the number in each fruit, up to 1.3 cm × 1 cm × 0.6 cm, glossy, light brown, hilum lanceolate, 2-3 mm wide, pale yellow, testa crustaceous. D. butyracea occurs naturally in hill forest of the outer Himalayan ranges, at 500-1000 m altitude, where it flowers from November-January and fruits in August. A form from the Andaman Islands with a brown hairy calyx, ovate corolla lobes and only 18 stamens has been classified as var. andamanensis van Royen. D. butyracea is propagated by seed, cuttings or air layering. Seeds from fully ripe fruits have a high germination percentage, especially when washed and soaked in water for 24 hours before sowing. The seed is recalcitrant and loses viability when the moisture content drops below 25%. Seed with pulp stored at 3°C also loses viability within 3 weeks. D. butyracea seed kernels contain: fat 50-60%, protein 5-8%, carbohydrates 4%, butyraceol and a triterpenoidal sapogenin. The fat is rich in palmitic acid (55%) and oleic acid (35%), poor in stearic acid and linoleic acid (about 3-4% each); its iodine value is 40-50 and its melting range 39-47°C. Of the total protein contained in the seed about 76% is 2S protein. Defatted seed flour of D. butyracea is toxic and contains carbohydrates (46%), proteins (27%) and saponins (10%). The saponins are a mixture of saponin A and saponin B, which are responsible for the toxicity for e.g. fungi, insects and fish. The flowers contain the flavonoids quercetin-3-O-rhamnoside and myricetin-3-O-rhamnosides, β-amyrin acetate, friedelin, erythrodiol monopalmitate, β-sitosterol and α-spinasterol. In its area of distribution, many studies have been conducted to gain more knowledge of this potentially important but still under-exploited species. Its possible production in the mountainous regions of South-East Asia needs further study.

Selected sources

19, 31, 34, 59, 63, 64, 69, 70, 79, 86, 108, 109, 123, 124, 130.