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Cordia sulcata
Also called White Manjack, Jack Tree, Man Jack, Sticking Berry
Cordia sulcata is a small tree or large shrub from the Caribbean, growing up to about 20 m, valued for its soft wood and sticky fruit pulp used as glue. It needs full sun, high humidity and a wet tropical climate with 1.3 to 3 m of annual rain.
Cordia sulcata is known commonly as moral, white manjack, or mucilage manjack. It is a tree that can be found throughout the Caribbean islands from Cuba to Trinidad.
The wood from C. sulcata is used for barrels and boxes since it is a soft/lightweight type of wood. It is also normally used for fuel, charcoal, and poles. From the fruit of the tree, the mucilage (viscous solution that is extracted from the fruit) is used for glue and maintaining dreadlocks. Parts of the tree have been used in the past for folk medicine, such as treating bronchitis and as a diuretic.
C. sulcata is found in places where the annual rainfall is between 1.3 and 3.0 m (4 and 10 ft), with high humidity. It grows in humid subtropical areas of the Caribbean. This plant uses pollinators such as bees to pollinate and birds eat the fruit as a form of seed dispersal. Thus, it cannot tolerate shade and the seedlings cannot survive under a closed canopy. It grows in soil derived from various parent rocks: limestone, sedimentary, and volcanic (including serpentine), and thus multiple soil properties are accepted by this species, including soil texture which can vary from sandy to clay. The small bowl-shaped flowers are probably pollinated by generalist insects. The fruits are eaten mainly by birds, such as Spindalis portoricensis – the sticky pulp of the fruits does not seem to be a problem and it is a valuable food source.
Spanish elm · Glue berry tree · Largeleaf geigertree · Kou · Cordia
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cordia sulcata 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.
