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Pongamia pinnata
Also called Indian beech, Pongame oiltree, Indian Beech Tree, Indian Beech, Pongam Oiltree
In Singapore: Seashore Mempari, Pongam, Indian Beech, Poonga Oil Tree, Karum Tree, 水黄皮, 番龙眼 (Native to Singapore, Endangered)
Pongamia (Pongamia pinnata) is a fast-growing, drought-tolerant legume tree native to tropical Asia and northern Australia, prized for shade and erosion control. It grows best in full heat and sun with deep soil or well-drained sand.
Pongamia pinnata is a species of tree in the pea family Fabaceae, native to eastern and tropical Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands. It is often known by the synonym Millettia pinnata. Its common names include Indian beech, Karanja, and Pongame oiltree.
The species is naturally distributed in tropical and temperate Asia, from Pakistan to Japan to Thailand and Malesia, including Sri Lanka, as well as northern and northeastern Australia and some Pacific islands;
Pongamia pinnata is well-adapted to arid zones, and has many traditional uses. It is often used for landscaping as a windbreak or for shade due to the large canopy and showy, fragrant flowers. The flowers are used by gardeners as compost for plants. The bark may be used to make twine or rope, and it also yields a black gum that has historically been used to treat wounds caused by poisonous fish. The wood is said to be beautifully grained, but splits easily when sawn, thus relegating it to firewood, posts, and tool handles. The tree's deep taproot and drought tolerance makes this tree ideal for controlling soil erosion and binding sand dunes. Rumphius writes the Malaparius (from Moluccan malapari) bark can be used to neutralise eeltail catfish venom, Seram Timur and Banda peoples infuse it with garlic, massoy and clover to treat beri-beri.
[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 Pongamia 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.
