The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Endospermum medullosum
Endospermum medullosum, commonly known as whitewood or PNG basswood, is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae . It was first described in 1947 by Australian botanist Lindsay Stuart Smith, and is native to areas from eastern Indonesia to Vanuatu. It is used as a source of timber.
Endospermum medullosum can be propagated from seeds as well as vegetative cuttings. With seed propagation, seeds should be collected quickly when they mature and planted within a few days. The seeds should be collected when the fruits go from dark green to light green. Usually 9,000 to 9,600 fruits produce 30,000 to 35,000 seeds. The species has low seed viability; therefore it is beneficial to raise the plant from cuttings. These cuttings are usually taken from hedges in misty conditions.
For the first couple of years and it is important the species has enough space to grow to maintain this growth rate. Under optimal conditions the fruits of the plant appear in the first 3–4 years. Endospermum medullosum has limited tolerance to various environmental conditions. These conditions include drought, shade, high wind speeds, and salt spray. Since the species did not evolve in these environments, growth under these conditions will be limited. The tree can grow fairly quickly in locations that are sunny.
Endospermum medullosum grows naturally in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, through New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon and Santa Cruz Islands to Vanuatu in the western South Pacific. It grows in humid lowland tropical climates where the temperature averages 22–28 °C (72–82 °F), with a mean rainfall of 1,500–5,600 millimetres (60–220 in) annually, and at altitudes from sea level to about 1,100 m (3,600 ft).
Whitewood has been used traditionally to make canoes and for firewood. The timber has a medium density and is easily worked. It has numerous applications in furniture and joinery but is not suitable for ground-contact situations. The timber is exported from Papua New Guinea. The leaves are used as a vegetable and the bark and sap have uses in traditional medicine.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Endospermum medullosum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
