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Heritiera fomes
Also called Jekanazo, Pinlekanazo, Sunder
Sundri is a large evergreen mangrove tree, the dominant species of the Sundarbans in Bangladesh and India, valued for hard timber. It is not a garden or houseplant and is endangered in the wild, so care here applies only to the rare attempts at cultivation in tidal or saline coastal settings.
Heritiera fomes is a species of mangrove tree in the family Malvaceae. Its common names include sunder, sundri, jekanazo and pinlekanazo. It is the dominant mangrove tree species of the Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India, and comprises about 70% of the trees in the area. H. fomes is a major timber-producing tree. It is threatened by over-harvesting, water diversions in the Ganges Basin, fluctuations in salinity due to upstream and coastal development and top dying disease. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as being "endangered".
Heritiera fomes is native to coastal regions of the Indo-Pacific, its range extending from the east coast of India through Bangladesh and Malaysia to Myanmar and Thailand. Compared to other species of mangrove, it grows in less saline environments and on drier ground that gets inundated by the tide only infrequently. It thrives on clayey soils and is the dominant species in these habitats, typically growing on the low banks that form around the edges of saucer-shaped, newly emerged islands. It is the dominant mangrove species in the area and its local name, sundari, gives the Sundarbans region its name.
Timber produced from Heritiera fomes is hard, fine-grained, tough and elastic. The heartwood is dark red or reddish brown and the sapwood is a paler reddish brown. The timber has many uses; in bridge building, house construction, boat building and joinery, as utility poles and tool handles, making hardboard and as firewood. The tree is grown commercially in plantations.
Heritiera javanica · Sundari tree · Looking Glass Tree · Heritiera parvifolia · Heritiera percoriacea · Heritiera utilis · Vascular Plants
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Heritiera fomes 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.
