Cynometra cauliflora is a small tree from Southeast Asia that bears its clustered flowers and crescent-shaped pods directly on its trunk and branches. It is grown mainly for its edible fruit in wet tropical lowland areas, and is usually raised from seed.
Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist during the growing season, watering more in dry spells.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile loam or sandy loam.
Temperature
22–34 °C; protect from frost and cold below 15 °C.
How easy
Moderate
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
S. Myanmar to W. & C. Malesia
Climate
wet tropical
About
Cynometra cauliflora is a small, cauliflorous tree with a thick, heavily branched stem, and rather small flowers, about 1.2 cm (0.5 in) across, that appear on the stem in clusters. It is known in Indonesian as namu-namu, after the flattened, crescent shaped pods, which look similar to the Indonesian pastry, namu-namu. In the city of Ternate, it is called namo-namo, and ñam-ñam in the Maldives. It is a species of the genus Cynometra, native to Malaysia, and found mainly in northern peninsular Malaysia.
How to grow it
The tree is usually grown from seed, although it can be propagated by budding, approach grafting and other methods.
[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 Cynometra cauliflora 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.