Mangifera minor (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Mangifera minor Blume

Protologue: Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Bat. 1(13): 198 (1850).

• Indonesia: taipa dare (Sulawesi), wewe bakafo (Moluccas), kusi (Irian Jaya)
• Solomon Islands: asai.

The Lesser Sunda Islands, the Philippines (Luzon), Sulawesi, the Moluccas, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Caroline Islands; sometimes cultivated.

The wood is used for light construction, interior finish, mouldings and furniture. The fruit is edible, but the pulp layer is thin and has an astringent taste. The bark is used in traditional medicine, against stomachache and as antidote for snake bites.

• A medium-sized to fairly large tree up to 40 m tall, with bole up to 90(-120) cm in diameter, but often much smaller, usually without buttresses, bark surface conspicuously fissured with broad, smooth ridges, pale brown, brown or grey.
• Leaves oblong to elliptical-lanceolate or narrowly elliptical, 12-20 cm × 3-7 cm.
• Inflorescence pseudo-terminal and in axils of upper leaves, lax and many-flowered, glabrous.
• Flowers 5-merous, petals (4-)5-6 mm long, yellowish-white to yellowish-green, with 3-5 distinct ridges confluent at the base, disk shallowly cushion-like, 5-lobed, one stamen fertile (rarely two), staminodes minute.
• Fruit obliquely oblong, often much narrowed and bent at the apex, up to 10 cm long, smooth, green when ripe.

M. minor grows not only in rain forest, but also in savanna, up to 1300 m altitude, and is locally common. It may flower already when 4 m tall. The heartwood is pale yellow with a silky sheen and blackish streaks. The density is about 610 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

60, 162, 166, 328, 330, 660, 673, 727. timbers

• See also Mangifera (PROSEA Fruits) for the Fruit use.