Scientific Name
Nephelium ramboutan-ake (Labill.) Leenh.
Synonyms
Litchi ramboutan-ake Labill. [1]
Vernacular Name
| Malaysia | Buah mua (Iban, Sarawak); meritam (Sabah, Sarawak); pulasan (Peninsular) [2]; rambutan kafri, mutan reba, sanggul lotong, merat, great, arang para [3] |
| Indonesia | Pulasa, kapulasan (Sundanese); pulasan (Javanese) [2][3] |
| Singapore | Pulasan [2] |
| Philippines | Bulala (Filipino); karayo (Tagalog); malapution (Samar-Leyte Bisaya) [2] |
| Myanmar | Kyetmauk [2] |
Geographical Distributions
Nephelium ramboutan is distributed from India (Assam), Burma (Myanmar), Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Java (doubtful), Borneo and the Philippines; also planted locally and possibly indigenous in the Moluccas. [2] Timber-yielding species of Nephelium are generally found as middle storey trees in evergreen, lowland or sometimes montane, primary or sometimes secondary rain forest on hills and ridges, up to 600(-1950) m altitude. The habitat varies between species, but most are found in well-drained locations on sandy to loamy or clayey soils or on limestone, although several occur on river banks and in swamps. [2]Botanical Description
N. ramboutan is a member of the Sapindaceae family. It is an evergreen, dioecious or sometimes monoecious, small to fairly large trees that can reach up to measure about 35(-44) m tall and it is rarely shrubs. [2]
The bole is usually fairly slender and straight or rather crooked, up to measuring 90(-140) cm in diametre, occasionally fluted and sometimes with buttresses which are up to measure about 2(-4) m high. The bark surface is smooth to slightly flaking or sometimes dippled and often lenticellate. The inner bark is brown to orange or red in colour. [2]
The leaves are arranged spirally, paripinnate, 1-foliolate or 1-5(-18)-jugate and exstipulate. The leaflets are arranged alternate or occasionally opposite, often glaucous and with domatia below. [2]
The flowers are in an axillary or terminal, thyrsoid inflorescence and unisexual (sometimes at least functionally so). The sepals are (4-)5(-6), which are free to connate in the lower half. The petals are 5(-6) where sometimes 1-4 are reduced or all absent. They are shorter than the sepal, clawed and with a bilobed scale inside. The disk is an entire. The male flowers are with 4-10 stamens. The female flowers are with a superior, (1-)2(-4)-locular and warty ovary with 1 ovule in each cell and 1 style. [2]
The fruit is a 1(-3)-lobed, partly to irregularly dehiscing capsule and generally with a warty to spiny wall. [2]
The seed is almost entirely covered by a sarcotesta. Seedling is with hypogeal germination. The cotyledons are not emergent while the hypocotyl is not elongated. The first pair of leaves is arranged opposite, paripinnate while the subsequent ones are with increasing numbers of leaflets. [2]
Cultivation
No documentation
Chemical Constituent
No documentation
Plant Part Used
No documentation
Traditional Use
No documentation
Preclinical Data
No documentation
Clinical Data
No documentation
Poisonous Management
No documentation
Line Drawing
References
- The Plant List. Ver1.1. Nephelium ramboutan-ake (Labill.) Leenh. [homepage on the Internet]. c2013 [updated 2012 Apr 18; cited 2015 Jul 27]. Available from: http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/tro-50126779
- Nephelium ramboutan-ake (Labill.) Leenh. In: Sosef MSM, Hong LT, Prawirohatmodjo S, editors. Plant Resources of South-East Asia No. 5(3): Timber trees: Lesser-known timbers. Leiden, Netherlands: Backhuys Publisher; 1998.
- Herbal Medicine Research Centre, Institute for Medical Research. Compendium of medicinal plants used in Malaysia. Volume 2. Kuala Lumpur: HMRC IMR; 2002. p. 166.
