549

13: Spices

Spondias pinnata (Koenig ex L.f.) Kurz

ANACARDIACEAE

Mangifera pinnata Koenig ex L.f., Spondias amara Lamk, Spondias mangifera Willd.

Amra, amna, ambra (En, India). Burma (Myanmar): gwe, pwe-baung. Cambodia: mokak. Laos: ko:k, ku:k. Thailand: ma-kok. Vietnam: c[os]c chua, c[os]c r[uwf]ng.

India, the Himalayas, Burma (Myanmar) and perhaps introduced and naturalized in Thailand, Indo-China, Andaman Islands and Sri Lanka.

The leaves are used for flavouring. The fruit is eaten as a vegetable when green and as a fruit when ripe but it has a watery, almost odourless acid taste. It can be made into chutneys, stews, pickles and jams. The wood is soft and deteriorates quickly in the open. Timber can be used for packing cases, floats, canoes, matches and non-ornamental plywood. It is fairly good for unbleached wood pulp. As fuel it is of poor quality. Medicinally the fruit is used as an astringent, antiscorbutic and against bilious dyspepsia. The juice is applied against earache.

Tree up to 27 m tall and with trunk diameter up to 50 cm but usually much smaller. Leaves 30-60 cm long, imparipinnate; leaflets 5-11, broadly elliptical, 6-10 cm x 2.5-6 cm, base rounded, apex acuminate, with 20-25 pairs of close parallel veins, all joining an intra-marginal vein. Inflorescence a large terminal panicle, with greenish-white, polygamous flowers. Fruit an ovoid drupe, 4-7 cm long, smooth, yellowish-green mottled with yellow and black, fleshy; stone surrounded by a capsule of intertwined fibres. Seed oblong-elliptical; only one of the three ovules develops. Spondias pinnata occurs in dry areas in deciduous forest, up to 1500 m altitude, but is nowhere very common. It loses its leaves for a considerable period, after which it flowers and the new shoots appear. Spondias pinnata occurs at the periphery of Malesia; in Malesia it has been confused with Spondias acida Blume, Spondias malayana Kosterm. and Spondias novoguineensis Kosterm.

[53] Kostermans, A.J.G.H., 1991. Kedondong, ambarella, amra. The Spondiadeae (Anacardiaceae) in Asia and the Pacific area. Foundation Useful Plants of Asia. Vol. 1. Herbarium Bogoriense, Bogor, Indonesia. 100 pp.

P.C.M. Jansen

Jansen, P.C.M., 1999. Spondias pinnata (Koenig ex L.f.) Kurz. In: de Guzman, C.C. and Siemonsma, J.S. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 13: Spices. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea