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Pandanus tectorius
In Singapore: Variegated Screw Pine, Pandanus Palm, Screw Pine, Mengkuang Laut, Mengkuang Duri, Pandan Darat, Pandan, 露兜树 (Grown in Singapore)
Tahitian screwpine is a small coastal tree native to the Pacific islands and parts of Southeast Asia and Australia, grown for its edible fruit and leaves. It is a species, not a genus; it thrives in full sun, sandy soil and salty sea air, and is often grown in tropical gardens.
Pandanus tectorius is a species of Pandanus (screwpine) that is native to Malesia, Papuasia, eastern Australia, and the Pacific Islands. It grows in the coastal lowlands typically near the edge of the ocean. Common names in English include thatch screwpine, Tahitian screwpine, hala tree (pū hala in Hawaiian) and pandanus. The fruit is edible and sometimes known as hala fruit.
The local Hawaiian name hala derives ultimately from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *paŋdan which is also the base for the Pandanus generic name via Malay: pandan; the Malay name for the plant itself is pandan laut (lit. 'sea pandan').
Pandanus tectorius may be grown from seed or cuttings – the former will flower at around 15 years and the latter usually flowers by 3 to 4 years of age. Female trees typically flower one to three times per year while male trees will flower every 2 months. It is thought to reproduce sexually in Hawaii, but there is some evidence that apomixis occurs. Small insects, such as bees, and wind are usually the pollinators. It takes 1 to 2 years from pollination to produce fruit on female trees.
Seasons vary amongst locations and varieties. For example, in Fiji the pollination season is March to May, in northern Australia it is April to August, and in Micronesia, there are two season December to March and July to September. Most varieties produce 8 to 12 fruits per tree every 2 years. Each fruit usually weighs between 7 and 15 kg (15 and 33 lb) and contains 35 to 80 edible keys.
Pandanus tectorius grows natively from the Philippines through the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. It is found in parts of Malesia (the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the Maluku Islands and the Philippines), throughout Papuasia, and in most of the tropical Pacific.
The fruit is edible. Some varieties and cultivars contain significant amounts of calcium oxalate, and thus need thorough cooking before being consumed. Other cultivars contain very little to no calcium oxalate and can be eaten raw. It is an important food source in the atolls of Micronesia and Polynesia, with the fruit commonly eaten raw or turned into a dried paste (such as mokwan in the Marshall Islands or te tuae in Kiribati) or flour. It is also one of the traditional foods of Maldivian cuisine. The fibrous nature of the fruit also serves as a natural dental floss. It is also used in Samoan culture as a ula fala, a necklace made out of the dried fruit painted in red and worn by the matai during special occasions and functions.
Fragrant Pandan · Pandanus brosimos · Pandanus conoideus · Karuka · Screw Pine · Common screwpine · Screwpine
[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 Pandanus tectorius 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.
