Canarium L.

Trees, occasionally shrubs (or ?climbers, see p. 211); pith of the branchlets nearly always with vascular strands. Leaves spirally arranged, very rarely in pseudowhorls; pinnate, very rarely unifoliolate; usually with a pair of stipules near or on the petiole; base of the petiole and ends of the petiolules often swollen. Panicles axillary or terminal, bracteate, sometimes, especially female ones, reduced to racemes or spikes. Flowers 3-merous. Receptacle in female flowers sometimes slightly concave (then disk adnate to it, and pistil shortly stalked). Sepals usually about halfway connate; outside hairy or glabrous, inside nearly always densely sericeous. Petals free, usually imbricate, in the central part thickened and induplicate-valvate near the apex, tip inflexed; outside usually more or less hairy except the base and margins, inside very rarely hairy. Stamens 6, epipetalous ones sometimes more or less to totally reduced; free to entirely connate, sometimes adnate to the disk; in female flowers sterile and often less well developed. Disk intrastaminal, in female flowers often for the greater part adnate to the receptacle; usually 6-lobed, in ♂ flowers often strongly developed. Pistil in male flowers usually very reduced to absent, sometimes united with the disk in an 'ovariodisk', which even can bear a 'style'; pistil sometimes fully replaced by the strongly developed disk. Pistil in ♀ flowers 3-celled (in Mal. spp.), sometimes seemingly stalked (the stalk representing the fertile part of the ovary). Fruits usually plum-shaped, drupe-like, nearly always blue-black when ripe (white in C. album from SE. Asia, red in C. euryphyllum var. euryphyllum), hairy, especially near base and apex, or glabrous; pericarp fleshy, rarely fibrous; pyrene stony, 3-celled, 1 or 2 cells often slightly to nearly entirely reduced (in the latter case endocarp very rarely absent). Cotyledons palmatifid to 3-foliolate, contortuplicate or folded.

Mainly large trees of primary and secondary rain-forests at low altitudes; sometimes in monsoon-or more open forests, parklands and (in Australia) on coastal dunes, rarely ascending up to c. 1800 m; some spp. are apparently abundant in secondary forests. None of the species is consistently a typical dominant in the rain-forest, though C. vulgare may locally occur gregariously as the Main constituent of the upper canopy in rather dry rain-forests (Kangean Isl., S. Port. Timor). Fl. Mainly in the dry season, fr. Mainly in the wet season, though many species apparently are flowering and fruiting all the year round.

Uses. The timbers are soft to moderately hard and probably not very durable in exposed positions, therefore not of great commercial value and only locally used. (The wood of the African C. schweinfurthii, of C. euphyllum from the Andamans, and of some Indian species seems to be of some importance in the world trade.) The resin is locally used; only that of C. luzonicum ('Manila-elemi') is of more than local importance. The fruits and especially the oily seeds of many species are in some way used as food; the only ones reaching the world market are those of Philippine C. ovatum ('Pili-nuts') and the Chinese C. album and pimela ('Chinese olives'1). Some Canariums are planted as shade trees, along roads, and in nutmeg-plantations (preferably C. vulgare and the Ceylonese C. zeylanieum).