Tuesday, November 22, 2011

ABC Wednesday-S for sea putat

Sea Putat is also called Barringtonia Asiatica, Fish Poison Tree or Sea Poison Tree. It is a species of Barringtonia native to mangrove habitats on the tropical coasts and islands of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean. In Singapore, they are most found in the coastal forest, shores, sandy to rocky coasts, but now are widely planted in our coastal parks. They are very beautiful landscape plants indeed. 

The tree can grow up to 20 meters. They are suitable for planting under a variety of soil conditions. Its massive dense crown provides shade and is ideal for public parks and large compounds. They have large waxy leaves in oval shape, size from 15 to 40 cm long, 10 to 20 cm wide.  Young leaves may be pinkish olive with pink veins. older leaves wither yellow or pale orange.
I like the stunning pinkish pom-pom flowers
The flowers can as large as to 15 cm across, conspicuous and attractive on account of the numerous white and pink stamens. White petals are up to 7 cm long.
Fruit large (8-10cm) in very unique shape, from dark green changed to brown when ripe, fibrous and contains one seed. The fruit floats and the softer outer layers rot in the water, so the fruit is stranded on a faraway shore as a fibrous basket surrounding the seed.



3 comments:

mrsnesbitt said...

Wow! Love the new horizons ABC Wednesday brings.
Denise ABC Team

Roger Owen Green said...

Don't know this plant!

ROG, ABC Wednesday team

DJ said...

lovely plant, never seen this one before! Thanks for sharing :)