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.
Pometia pinnata
Also called Oceanic Lychee, Kasai, Megan, Taun, Taun Tree, Island Lychee
In Singapore: Island Lychee, Lansir, Pacific Lychee, Fijian Longan, Kasai Daun Besar, Kasai Langsir, Kelisar, Obahu, Kawa, Tawa, 番龙眼 (Native to Singapore, Endangered)
A large evergreen hardwood tree of wet tropical forests, grown mainly for its timber and its edible fruit, which resembles lychee. It is the species, not a genus, and grows best in hot, humid, high-rainfall conditions.
The Pometia pinnata is a tropical hardwood tree species that is widespread in the Pacific and Southeast Asian regions. The tree species has many common names, including matoa, tava (in Samoa and Tonga), taun tree, Island lychee and Pacific lychee. The species comes from the Sapindaceae family and comes from the clades of Tracheophytes, Angiosperms, and the order Sapindales.
Pometia pinnata is a widespread type of timber tree species. The species originated from Sri Lanka and the Andaman Islands through Southeast Asia. The pinnata species also inhabits New Guinea and other Pacific islands. It grows naturally in warm to hot, humid subtropical and tropical zones, with a typical elevation of 0–500 m (0–1,640 ft). The trees need an annual rainfall of 1,500–5,000 mm (59–197 in). The species has a natural, native range in the Asian-Pacific region of the globe. The Tava species is native throughout the island of Borneo. The plant species has a range of distribution that keeps growing, but not invasive. It is modernly distributed to New Caledonia, eastern Polynesia, and the North Pacific islands, like Hawaiʻi.
[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 Pometia pinnata 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.
