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Terminalia catappa
Also called Beach almond, Indian almond, Sea almond, Country Almond, Alman Tree, Almond, Almond Tree
In Singapore: Sea Almond, Ketapang, Tropical Almond Tree, Pacific Almond, Singapore Almond, Indian Almond, Lingtak, Bastard Almond, Telisai, Jelawai Ketapang, 榄仁树 (Native to Singapore, Least Concern)
2 NParks heritage trees in Singapore: Found in Singapore Botanic Gardens, EG8 (future ethno-botany garden); Found in Pasir Panjang Food Centre (near PPJ MRT Station)
Terminalia catappa is a large, spreading tropical tree grown mainly for its shade and tiered branches, with edible almond-like seeds. It is a species, not a genus, and is best suited to warm, frost-free climates.
Terminalia catappa is a large tropical tree in the leadwood tree family, Combretaceae, native to Asia, Australia, the Pacific, Madagascar and Seychelles. Common names in English include country almond, Indian almond, Malabar almond, sea almond, tropical almond, beach almond and false kamani.
The species epithet is based on its Malay name ketapang.
T. catappa is widely grown in tropical regions of the world as an ornamental tree, grown for the deep shade its large leaves provide. The fruit is edible, tasting slightly acidic. When ripe, the seeds are edible raw or cooked and are the source of its 'almond' common names, but are small and difficult to extract.
The wood is red and solid, and has high water resistance; it has been used in Polynesia for making canoes. In Tamil, almond is known as nattuvadumai.
The tree has been spread widely by humans, so the native range is uncertain. It has long been naturalized in a broad belt extending from Africa to northern Australia and New Guinea through southeast Asia and Micronesia into the Indian subcontinent. More recently, the plant has been introduced to parts of the Americas. Until the mid-20th century, the tree had been used extensively in Brazilian urban landscaping, since being a rare case tropical deciduous, their fallen leaves would give a "European" flair to the street. This practice is currently abolished, and the "amendoeiras" are being replaced by native, evergreen trees.
Arjun · Terminalia australis · Myrobalan · Black Olive · Terminalia calamansanai · Myrobalan · Terminalia dhofarica · Indian Laurel · Kakadu Plum · Ivory Coast almond · Terminalia macroptera · Terminalia mantaly
[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 Terminalia catappa 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.
