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Barringtonia racemosa
Also called Cassowary pine, Mango pine, Barringtonia, Fish Poison Tree, China Pine, Derbyshire Pine, Cornbeefwood
In Singapore: Common Putat, Fish-Killer Tree, Fish-Poison Tree, Freshwater Mangrove, Powder-Puff Tree, Putat Ayam, Putat Kampong, Small-Leaved Barringtonia, 水茄笗, 细叶棋盘脚树, 玉蕊 (Native to Singapore, Critically Endangered)
Barringtonia racemosa is a tree (sometimes grown as a shrub) in the Brazil-nut family, native to coastal swamps and estuaries across the Indian Ocean, South-East Asia and the Pacific. It is grown mainly as a garden or landscape tree in warm, wet tropical climates, where it needs consistently moist conditions.
Barringtonia racemosa, commonly known as powder-puff tree, is a species of tree in the family Lecythidaceae. It is found in coastal swamp forests and on the edges of estuaries in the Indian Ocean, starting at the east coast of Mozambique and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) to Madagascar, India, Sri Lanka, Malesia, Maldives, Thailand, Laos, southern China, northern Australia, coastal Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands and many Polynesian islands.
The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia' records that the Indigenous people of the Mitchell River District called this plant "Yakooro" and that "The root of this tree has a bitter taste, and is used by Hindoo [sic.] practitioners on account of its aperient and cooling qualities. The seeds and bark are also used in native medicine; the latter is of a reddish colour, and is said to possess properties allied to the Cinchonas.
Freshwater mangrove · Sea putat · Corned Beef Wood · Cutnut · Barringtonia macrostachya
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Barringtonia racemosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
