Sunday, July 22, 2007

Bruguiera

All Bruguiera have knee roots.Bakau putih (Bruguiera cylindrica)

Flowers small with pale hard sepals and tiny white petals. The petals usually wither away by mid-day.
Seedlings cylindrical, slender with backward pointing sepals (the thing that looks like a crown)

The wood from the tree is used for fish stakes, pilings, railway sleepers, heavy pillars and beams and other construction. It is also favoured as firewood and for conversion into charcoal as it produces the most heat among mangrove woods. The bark is astringent and used to treat malaria, cure fish poisoning, diarrhoea and fever.

Tumu (Bruguiera gymnorhiza)

Flowers with red hard plasticky sepals (sometimes bright red, sometimes pale pink) and brown furry petals. The petals usually wither away soon after blooming.
Seedling short and fat.

Links to more Bruguiera
on the Guide to the Mangroves of Singapore
Bakau putih (Bruguiera cylindrica)
Tumu (Bruguiera gymnorhiza)

This one is rare
Lenggadai (Bruguiera praviflora)

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