Erythrina fusca (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Erythrina fusca Lour.

Protologue: Fl. Cochinch.: 427 (1790).

Synonyms

• Erythrina glauca Willd. (1801),
• Erythrina ovalifolia Roxb. (1832),
• Erythrina atrosanguinea Ridley (1911).

Vernacular names

• Coral bean, purple coral tree, swamp immortelle (En)
• Bucayo (Am)
• Bois immortel, immortelle blanche (Fr)
• Indonesia: cangkring (Javanese, Sundanese), kane (Sulawesi)
• Malaysia: dedap, dadap
• Philippines: anii (Tagalog), korung-korung (Bisaya)
• Papua New Guinea: maor (Lamekot), vatamida (Ugana)
• Cambodia: rolouohs p-ông'
• Laos: th'o:ng hla:ng
• Thailand: thong lang nam, thong long (central)
• Vietnam: vông dông (Ho Chi Minh), vông gai (Quang Nam), cây son dong (Anamese).

Distribution

E. fusca is the most widespread species in the genus occurring wild in both the Old and New World tropics. In Asia and Oceania it occurs along coasts and rivers from India to the Philippines, New Guinea and Polynesia; in Africa it occurs in Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, the Comoro Islands and Pemba Island, but not in continental Africa. Furthermore in Central and South America in the West Indies, throughout the Amazon basin, and along the coast of Brazil, Colombia, up to Honduras and Guatemala; planted throughout the humid tropics.

Uses

In Indonesia the scraped inner bark is used for poulticing fresh wounds, and bark or root decoctions are applied against beri-beri. The grated wood is used to treat haematuria; the root is used for rheumatism; bark and leaves serve as vermifuge. In Thailand, roots, bark and leaves are used as an antipyretic. In Vietnam, the bark is used to treat toothache. The young leaves are eaten as a vegetable in Java and Bali, as are the flowers in Guatemala. In Central America, the leaves are a source of animal fodder.

Observations

• A medium to large, spreading tree, 10-15(-26) m tall, crown rounded, trunk short, spiny, much branched, sometimes with buttresses up to 2 m.
• Petiole up to 25 cm long, stipules orbicular, rachis up to 5 cm long, leaflets ovate to elliptical, 2.5-20 cm × 1.5-15 cm, rounded or subacute at both ends, subcoriaceous, glabrous to velvety hairy, petiolule up to 1.5 cm long, stipels orbicular.
• Inflorescence racemose, terminal, appearing when leaves are present, peduncle up to 13 cm long.
• Flowers in fascicles scattered along the rachis, covered with deciduous, ferruginous hairs, pale brick-red or salmon (rarely white), pedicel up to 2 cm long, calyx asymmetrical, broadly campanulate, about 1.5 cm long, lacerate or subentire but with a 0.5-1.5 mm long spur on the keel side, pubescent; standard rounded-rhombic, 4-7 cm × 3.5-6 cm, orange or scarlet, claw 9 mm long, keel slightly longer than the wings, both about half the length of the standard, stamens 4-6 cm long, subdiadelphous, 1 free, 9 united in lower half into staminal tube.
• Fruit a woody, linear, compressed pod, 14-33 cm × 1.5-2 cm, on a stout stalk 1.5 cm long, slightly constricted between the 3-15 seeds, velvety ferruginously hairy when young, later glabrescent, dehiscent.
• Seed oblong-ellipsoid, 12-18 mm × 5-8 mm, dark brown or black.

Selected sources

• [74] Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr, R.C., 1964—1968. Flora of Java. 3 volumes. Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. Vol. 1 (1964) 647 pp., Vol. 2 (1965) 641 pp., Vol. 3 (1968) 761 pp.
• Baretta-Kuipers, T., 1982. Wood structure of the genus Erythrina. Allertonia 3(1): 53-69.
• [135] Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. Revised reprint. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol. 1 (A—H) pp. 1—1240, Vol. 2 (I—Z) pp. 1241—2444.
• de Oliveira Leite, J. & Valle, R.R., 1990. Nutrient cycling in the cacao ecosystem: rain and throughfall as nutrient sources for the soil and cacao tree. Agriculture, Ecosystems and the Environment 32: 143-154.
• [273] Duke, J.A., 1985. Handbook of medicinal herbs. CRC Press, Inc., Boca Raton, Florida, United States. 677 pp.
• Gillett, J.B., Polhill, R.M. & Verdcourt, B., 1971. Erythrina. In: Milne-Redhead, E. & Polhill, R.M. (Editors): Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae 4, Papilionoideae 2. Crown Agents for Oversea Governments and Administrations, London, United Kingdom. p. 547.
• [407] Heyne, K., 1950. De nuttige planten van Indonesië [The useful plants of Indonesia]. 3rd Edition. 2 volumes. W. van Hoeve, 's-Gravenhage, the Netherlands/Bandung, Indonesia. 1660 + CCXLI pp.
• Krukoff, B.A., 1939. The American species of Erythrina. Brittonia 3: 224-227.
• Muschler, R.G., Nair, P.K.R. & Menendez, L., 1993. Crown development and biomass production of pollarded Erythrina berteroana, E. fusca and Gliricidia sepium in the humid tropical lowlands of Costa Rica. Agroforestry Systems 24: 123-143.
• Neill, D.A., 1988. Experimental studies on species relationships in Erythrina (Leguminosae: Papilionoideae). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 75: 886-969.
• [786] Perry, L.M., 1980. Medicinal plants of East and Southeast Asia. Attributed properties and uses. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States & London, United Kingdom. 620 pp.
• Russo, R.O., 1990. Erythrina: a versatile nitrogen-fixing woody legume genus for agroforestry systems in the tropics. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 1(2): 89-109.
• [1038] Verdcourt, B., 1979. A manual of New Guinea legumes. Botany Bulletin No 11. Office of Forests, Division of Botany, Lae, Papua New Guinea. 645 pp.

Main genus page

• Erythrina (Medicinal plants)
• Erythrina (Timbers)

Authors

• Undang A. Dasuki