Flacourtia rukam is a thorny tree of the willow family, native to Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia and cultivated for its small edible plum-like fruit. Grow it in warm, humid tropical conditions with full sun and well-drained soil.
Family
Salicaceae (Willow family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Water regularly while establishing, then allow the top of the soil to dry between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained, fertile loam.
Temperature
20–35 °C; protect from frost, which it cannot tolerate.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
Nicobar Is. to W. Pacific
Climate
wet tropical
About
Flacourtia rukam is a species of flowering plant in the family Salicaceae. It is native to Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia, but has spread into Mainland Southeast Asia, India, and Polynesia. It is also cultivated for its edible fruit. Common names include rukam, governor's plum, Indian plum, and Indian prune.
This species is a tree growing 5 to 15 meters tall. The trunk is lined with thorns up to 10 centimeters long; some cultivated varieties lack thorns. New leaves are red to brown in color. Mature leaves are somewhat oval in shape with toothed edges and up to 16 centimeters long by 7 wide. Racemes of yellow-green male and female flowers occur in the leaf axils. The rounded fruit is about 2 centimeters long and is green, red, or purple in color.
[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 Flacourtia rukam 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.