Local Name:

Scientific Name:

Family:

Habitat

Propagation

The tree is usually grown from seeds and cuttings. Shield-budding has been successfully practiced in the Philippines.

Comments

The mabolo is an errect tree about 18 to 33 meters, with stout, black, furrowed trunk to reaching 80 cm thick. It is slow-growing and evergreen. The leaves are alternate, oblong, pointed at the apex, rounded or pointed at the base, 15-22.8 cm long, 5-9 cm wide,leathery, dark- green, smooth and glossy on the upper surface, silvery-hairy underneath. The flowers are tubular, 4-lobed, waxy, faintly fragrant, stalk short. Male flowers are 6 mm wide, in small clusters, and female flowers, 12.5 mm wide, solitary, and are borne on separate trees.The fruit is oval or oblate, 5-10 cm wide, has thin, pink, brownish, yellow, orange or purple-red skin, densely coated with short, golden-brown or coppery hairs, and is capped at the base with a dull-green, stiff calyx. The fruits are often borne in pairs, very close together on opposite sides of a branch. A strong, unpleasant, cheese-like odor is given off by the whole fruit ,moist but not very juicy, more or less sweet flavor.There may be 4 to 8 brown, smooth, wedge-shaped seeds, about 4 cm long and 2.5 cm wide, standing in a circle around the central core, though the fruits are often completely seedless. Each seed is covered with a whitish membrane that is transparent when fresh, and opaque when dried.