Bouea macrophylla
Immature Bouea macrophylla in a basket
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Sapindales
Family: Anacardiaceae
Genus: Bouea
Species:
B. macrophylla
Binomial name
Bouea macrophylla
Synonyms[1]
  • Bouea gandaria Blume
  • Tropidopetalum javanicum Turcz.

Bouea macrophylla, commonly known as gandaria or plum mango or mango plum in English, is a species of flowering plant native to Southeast Asia. The tree belongs to the family Anacardiaceae which also includes mango and cashew.

Description

A young gandaria fruit in Java. Ripened ones are yellow-orange.
Gandaria leaf in Java

The evergreen tree grows to heights of 25 meters. Its leaves are lanceolate to elliptic in shape (see: Leaf shape), and range from 13 to 45 cm (5 to 17 inches) long and from 5 to 7 cm (2 to 3 inches) wide.

The fruit (resembling a mango) are green in colour and mature to an orange/yellow, with the seed being pink. They grow to roughly 2 to 5 cm (0.7 to 1.9 inches) in diameter. The entire fruit, including its skin is edible. The fruit range from sweet to sour in flavor similar to the Alphonso mango,[2] and have a light smell of turpentine. When ripe, the fruit is soft and has fibrous mango-like seeds that have a noticeable purple color.

Flowering and fruiting times differ for Thailand and Indonesia.

  • Thailand : flowers in November to December, and fruit appears from April to May.
  • Indonesia : flowers in June to November, and fruit appears from March to June.

Distribution

The tree is native to Indonesia, and Burma. It is also found in Thailand, Laos, and Malaysia, where it is commercially grown. It can also be found in the northern parts of Pakistan (such as Murree and Nathia Gali).

Uses

Culinary

Jus gandaria, mango plum juice consumed in Indonesia

Both the leaves and fruit from the tree can be eaten. The leaves can be eaten raw when they are still young, and can be used in salads. While the seed is edible, the endosperm is generally bitter. The fruit is very acidic and has a mango-like flavour. It can be eaten raw, or made into dishes such as pickle, compote, or sambal. Unripened fruit can be used to make rojak and asinan.[3] In Ambon, the fruit is made for juice.[4]

Functional

The entire tree can be used as an ornamental fruit bearing shade tree due to its dense foliage.[5]

Other names

Ripe Bouea macrophylla or Buah Remia/Setar/Kundang sold in Malaysia

Bouea macrophylla is commonly known in English as the "marian plum", "gandaria", "plum mango" and "mango plum". In Malay, the tree is known as kundang in Malay and its fruit buah kundang. The Malays differentiate between two varieties:

  • Kundang daun kecil ("small-leaf kundang") also known as remia, remnia or rumenia.
  • Kundang daun besar ("large-leaf kundang"), also known as kundang hutan ("jungle kundang) or setar. This usually refers to Bouea oppositifolia, and is the origin of the toponym Alor Setar (with alor meaning "small stream").

In Indonesian, it is known as ramania and gandaria. It is also known in Thai as maprang (มะปราง), mayong (มะยง) and mayong chit (มะยงชิด). In Burmese as mayan-thi (မရန်းသီး); and in Vietnamese as thanh trà.

In 2015 a major retailer introduced the fruit to the British public under the name plango, apparently a portmanteau word for "plum" and "mango".[6] At the time the announcements noted the resemblance of the fruit to plums and mangoes, and some of the local press deliberately or naively announced that the fruit was a cross between a plum and a mango,[7] which is not botanically plausible as plums and mangoes are not in the same family.

References

  1. 1 2 "Bouea macrophylla". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  2. ↑ "This is a mango plum hybrid and they're about to go on sale in the UK". BT.com. Archived from the original on 2019-05-19. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  3. ↑ "West Australian Nut and Tree Crops Association". WANATCA Yearbook (ISSN 0312-8997), Vol. 20, p. 42 (1996).
  4. ↑ "Jus Buah Gandaria: Perpaduan Jus Mangga dan Jeruk Dengan Manfaat Luar Biasa". indonesiakaya.com (in Indonesian). Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  5. ↑ "TopTropicals plant catalog". Archived from the original on 2007-09-15. Retrieved 2007-11-21.
  6. ↑ Fresh Plaza announcement Archived 2018-04-01 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ↑ Plango press announcement

Sources

Bouea macrophylla taxonomy
Species with potential for commercial development
Mansfeld database
AgroForestryTree Database

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