Sonneratia alba

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Sonneratia alba
Sonneratia alba - Manado (2) .JPG

Sonneratia alba

Systematics
Eurosiden II
Order : Myrtle-like (Myrtales)
Family : Loosestrife family (Lythraceae)
Subfamily : Sonneratioideae
Genre : Sonneratia
Type : Sonneratia alba
Scientific name
Sonneratia alba
Sm.
Flowers and leaves
Pneumatophores
fruit

Sonneratia alba is a tree in the loosestrife family. It mostly grows in the mangroves from East Africa , Madagascar to South India and Southeast Asia , South China and northern Australia to New Caledonia .

description

Sonneratia alba grows as an evergreen , halophytic tree up to about 15, rarely up to 20– (30) meters high. The trunk diameter can be up to 1.5 meters. The gray-brown bark is thick and cracked with age and partly coarse scaly. In the mangroves, it forms 30–100 centimeter high pneumatophores or stilt roots . There may be roots or corrugations at the bottom of the trunk .

The simple, opposite and bare leaves are short stalked and ovate to obovate or rounded, elliptical. The thick petiole is about 0.7-1.5 inches long. The leaves are entire, thick and leathery and up to about 5–13 centimeters long. At the top they are rounded or rounded or indented, and sometimes finely spiky, "lipped" when pressed down , and they are about the same color on the top and bottom. The nerve is finely pinnate and the lateral veins converge in an intramarginal vein. The stipules are missing.

The hermaphroditic, stalked and fragrant, large flowers appear singly or up to three at the branch ends. They are usually about 6-8 counted and with a double flower cap . The thick, bare flower stalk is divided with "joints". The outside green calyx is thick and leathery with ragged, narrow-triangular, inside reddish tips. The early declining, less than 6; or more petals are white, sometimes reddish at the base and thread or spatula, stamen-shaped (sometimes they are completely absent). Many long, free and white, sometimes reddish stamens are formed in two circles, the anthers are kidney-shaped. The multilocular ovary is medium continuously in a square cup-shaped and fleshy flower cups , with a long, tapered and thick pen with capitate and wider, mushroom-shaped scar . There is a disc under the ovary.

Roundish, somewhat flattened and leathery, smooth, bare and green berries with a permanent, star-shaped calyx and flower cup and stylus remains are formed. They are about 2.5-4.5 inches in diameter. The many (100–150), whitish and sickle-shaped, smooth seeds are buoyant and 10–15 millimeters long.

The flowers open in the evening until morning and are often pollinated by bats .

use

The sour fruits should be edible. The leaves are eaten raw or cooked.

The medium-heavy, -hard and -resistant wood is salty. Special screws and nails are required (copper, stainless steel ). It is known as perepat or Gedabu and is used on boats, canoes, paddles, stakes and posts for bridges and houses, and in carpentry.

The wood is not to be confused with that of Combretocarpus rotundatus which is also called Perepat (darat).

The pneumatophores can be used as shoe soles, floats or cork substitutes. The tannic rind provides a coloring agent.

literature

  • PB Tomlinson: The Botany of Mangroves. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986, 1994, ISBN 0-521-25567-8 , p. 367.
  • Martin Chudnoff: Tropical Timbers of the World. Agriculture Handbook 607, USDA, 1984, p. 397, limited preview in Google book search.
  • Dipak Sarmah: Forests of Karnataka. Notion Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-64546-738-0 .
  • NC Duke, BR Jackes: A systematic revision of the mangrove genus Sonneratia (Sonneratiaceae) in Australasia. In: Blumea. 32 (2), 1987, pp. 277-302, online (PDF), at James Cook University.

Web links

Commons : Sonneratia alba  - Collection of images, videos and audio files