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.
Sapindus
Also called Soapnut
Sapindus is a genus of about thirteen shrubs and small trees in the maple and lychee family (Sapindaceae), commonly called soapberries or soapnuts. Members are grown for shade and ornament, and their fruit pulp has long been used as a natural soap.
Sapindus is a genus of about thirteen species of shrubs and small trees in the maple and lychee family, Sapindaceae and tribe Sapindeae. It is native to warm temperate to tropical regions of the world. The genus includes both deciduous and evergreen species. Members of the genus are commonly known as soapberries or soapnuts because the pulp of the fruit is used to make soap and shampoo. The generic name is derived from the Latin words sapo, meaning "soap", and indicus, meaning "of India".
The leaves are alternate, 15–40 cm (5.9–15.7 in) long, pinnate (except in S. oahuensis, which has simple leaves), with 14–30 leaflets, the terminal leaflet often absent. The flowers form in large panicles, each flower small, creamy white. The fruit is a small leathery-skinned drupe 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) in diameter, yellow ripening blackish, containing one seed. Fossils date back to the Cretaceous.
Sapindus species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) species including Endoclita malabaricus. Kernel extracts of soapnut disrupt the activity of enzymes of larvae and pupae and inhibit the growth of the mosquito Aedes aegypti, an important vector of viral diseases.
The drupes (soapnuts) contain saponins, which have surfactant properties, being used for washing by ancient Asian and American peoples. A number of other uses for Sapindus have also been reported such as making arrows from the wood and decorative objects from the seeds.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sapindus 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.
