Diospyros malabarica is a large, slow-growing evergreen tree from tropical Asia, valued for its striped wood and used in traditional medicine. It is rarely grown as a garden or houseplant outside the tropics, so care depends on a warm, humid, frost-free site.
Family
Ebenaceae (Eben family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep soil evenly moist while young, and water regularly in dry spells, letting the top layer dry slightly between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile loam with added organic matter.
Temperature
20–32 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Hard
Native range
Trop. Asia
Climate
wet tropical
About
Diospyros malabarica, the gaub tree, Malabar ebony, black-and-white ebony or pale moon ebony, is a species of flowering tree in the family Ebenaceae that is native to the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia.
It is a long-lived, very slow-growing tree, which can reach up to 35 m in height with a black trunk up to 70 cm in diameter. It is an evergreen tree with white or green flowers. The tree is found in lowland rainforests, primarily along rivers and streams.
Uses
Both the bark of the tree and the unripe fruit have medicinal uses in Ayurveda. This tree was mentioned as Tinduka by Sanskrit writers.
[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 Diospyros malabarica 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.