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Buchanania arborescens
Also called Green Plum, Little Gooseberry tree, Sparrow’s Mango
In Singapore: Sparrows' Mango, Otak Udang, Katak Udang, Ketak Udang, Puah Pipit, Puan, Terentang Tikus (Native to Singapore, Least Concern)
1 NParks heritage tree in Singapore: Found in
Buchanania arborescens is a small, slender tree of seasonal tropical forests in northern Australia, Southeast Asia and the Solomon Islands, grown for its small edible fruit. It needs a warm, humid, frost-free climate and is rarely grown as a garden or houseplant.
Buchanania arborescens, commonly known as the little gooseberry tree or sparrow's mango, is a small and slender tree native to seasonal tropical forests of northern Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Solomon Islands.
The leaves are spirally arranged, smooth, leathery, elongated oblong, 5–26 cm long. The flowers are very small cream to yellowish white. The edible fruit are globular, small (1 cm long), reddish to purple-black.
Aboriginal people eat the fruit raw. The plant is also used as a traditional medicine in Australia and Malaysia. The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia' records that "The unripe fruits of this plant were gathered, and, when boiled, imparted an agreeable acidity to the water, and when thus prepared, tasted tolerably well. When ripe, they become sweet and pulpy, like gooseberries, although their rind is not very thick. This resemblance induced us to call the tree 'the little gooseberry'tree" quoted from Leichhardt: Overland journey to Port Essington, p. 479.
[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 Buchanania arborescens 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.
