4408

5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Mangifera indica L.

This article should be read together with the article on the genus: Mangifera (timber aspects) in the Handbook volume indicated above in this database.

Sp. pl. 1: 200 (1753).

Mango (En). Manguier (Fr). Indonesia: mangga, mempelam. Malaysia: mangga, mempelam, ampelam. Papua New Guinea: mango (Pidgin). Philippines: mangga (general), paho (Bisaya), mango (Ilokano). Burma (Myanmar): thar-yetthi, thayet thayt-hypu. Cambodia: svaay. Laos: mwàngx. Thailand: mamuang. Vietnam: xo[af]i.

Mango supposedly originated in India and Burma (Myanmar), but is now cultivated all over the tropics and subtropics.

The wood is used as machang, e.g. for indoor construction; it makes excellent charcoal and is also used to culture mushrooms. Mango is cultivated for the fruits which are eaten fresh when ripe or unripe or processed (in pickles, chutneys, dried slices, canned slices in syrup, juices, pastes etc.). Seed kernels are used as famine food (after long boiling, roasting or soaking) and feed for cattle and poultry. Young leaves are used as vegetable. Bark, kernels and flowers are used in traditional medicine as astringents; various parts of the tree have antibiotic properties. The bark can be used as a yellowish-brown dye for silk.

A medium-sized to fairly large tree up to 40(—45) m tall, with bole up to 120 cm in diameter, bark surface rather smooth, superficially cracked or fissured, greyish-brown; leaves narrowly elliptical to lanceolate, 8—40 cm 2—10 cm; inflorescence pseudo-terminal, many-flowered and pyramidal, puberulous; flowers 5-merous, petals 3—5 mm long, creamish to pinkish, with 3—5 yellow (later pinkish) ridges on the inner surface, disk cushion-like, 5-lobed or notched, one stamen fertile (rarely two), staminodes minute; fruit very variable in shape, size and colour, subglobose to elongated-oblong and more or less compressed, up to 30 cm long, glossy and smooth, yellowish-green to reddish when ripe. Commercial cultivars of Mangifera indica thrive up to 600 m altitude in the tropics, but need a prominent cold or dry season for good floral induction. The density of the wood is 590—800 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

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R.H.M.J. Lemmens

Lemmens, R.H.M.J., 1995. Mangifera indica L.. In: Lemmens, R.H.M.J., Soerianegara, I. and Wong, W.C. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea