Spondias purpurea L.

Shrub or small tree to 10(-15) m high with smooth gray bark, the branches stout. Leaves with (3-)5-12 pairs of leaflets, the rachis 5-25 cm long (often sulcate or bisulcate above and with pilose trichomes bordering the grooves), the leaflets alternate or opposite, with petiolules 0.5-3 mm long and frequently pilose; lamina of leaflets obliquely elliptic to obovate or less often ovate, apically acute or sub-acuminate to rounded or emarginate and often cuspidate, basally typically acute but varying from subattenuate to obtuse, assymetric at the base, entire or serrate (the teeth sometimes with a cilium at the tip), 1.5-6 cm long, 0.7-3 cm broad, membranous, pilose along the midvein (and sometimes on the secondaries) above and/or below or else glabrous, with a rather distinct submarginal collecting vein. Inftorescences racemose-paniculate or subeapitate, laterally disposed on older de-nuded branches, red or reddish-purple, 0.5-8 cm long, pilosulous or glabrate. Flowers a, red, the distally articulated pedicels 0.5-4 mm long; calyx-segments 5, rotund-ovate, ca 1 mm long; petals 5, lanceolate to oblong-or ovate-lanceolate apically strongly uncinate (hooked inward), 2.5-3.5 mm long, erect or strongly ascending; stamens 10, subequal or unequal, slightly exceeded by the petals, the filaments flattened, tapering toward the apex; disc strongly crenate to subentire; styles (3-)4, 1 mm long or slightly less, ovate or ampulliform, glabrous, conspicu-ously constricted at the beginning of the capitate stigmatic portion. Drupes red or purple, 1.5-3.5 cm long, 1-2.5 cm broad, ovoid or oblong.

Little cultivated in Malesia except in the Philippines where it was introduced by the Spaniards; now found in many provinces, especially abundant in the region immediately south of Manila. According to CORNER ( CORNER Ways. Trees 1940 115 sub S. lutea ) the trunk and branches are thickly set with blunt, light brown, corky spines and knobs, the trunk of old trees becoming widely and deeply fissured with hard, narrow, uneven ridges or toothed flanges.

Uses. Cultivated for the fruit which tastes sweet, if mawkish. The fruit is pleasantly fragrant, like plums in turpentine! (CORNER). HEYNE Nutt. Pl. 1927 975 noted that the solid bark is in Java used for making stamps, but the fruit is not esteemed; the latter is called hog-plum, E, varkenspruim, D.

Seeds do not normally grow. Plants are grown by cuttings and stem sprouts. Straight cuttings 6 cm thick and 1.5 m long are used. The cuttings are made at the start of leaf production. The cuttings are kept in the shade for a couple of weeks. They are then planted 8 m apart and at a depth of 30 cm. Flowers bud on the current year's growth so pruning can be done yearly. Pruning increases the size and weight of fruit.