Scientific Name : Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels
Common Name : Jambolan Plum, Java Plum
Chinese Name : 烏墨, 海南蒲桃, 烏口樹, 肯氏蒲桃
Family : MYRTACEAE
Local distribution status : Exotic species
| Origins | Hainan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Fujian provinces, etc. It also has distribution in Indo-Malaysia Region and Australia. |
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| Ecology | Secondary forests, wastelands, and riversides are the natural habitats of the Jambolan Plum. It is an invasive species in Hawaii, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. |
| Meanings of names & applications | The Jambolan Plum is a native plant to Hainan under the genus Syzygium (蒲桃屬), therefore it is also called the “Hainan Rose-apple (海南蒲桃)” in Chinese. Another Chinese common name “Ken’s Rose-apple (肯氏蒲桃)” may be related to its species epithet “cumini” that is pronounced like the Chinese word “Ken (肯)”. According to Flora of Hainan, the bark of this species “contains brown dye and dark red resin”. It might lead to the Chinese name “Dark-colour Dye (烏墨)” (meaning dark pigment). Additionally, the fruit of Jambolan Plum is edible. According to Food Plants of China, people in South China have the practice of consuming its fruits. It is a drupaceous berry turning purplish black when mature. Owing to the dark juice that stains around the mouth when consuming the fruit, it is named “Blackened-mouth Tree (烏口樹)” in Chinese. Jambolan Plum grows rapidly and has strong adaptability, and is now cultivated as a street tree and ornamental plant globally. |
| Growing habit | Evergreen tree. |
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| Height | To 15 m. |
| Stems | Bark of trunk grey, coarse. Branchlets terete, greyish white when dry. |
| Leaves | Broadly elliptic to narrowly elliptic, apex rounded to obtuse with a short cusp. Opposite, leathery, glossy. Lateral veins many and dense, anastomosing (connected) near margin. Both surfaces with many small transparent glands. Brownish green to blackish brown adaxially when dry, slightly glossy, abaxially slightly paler. Petioles with shallow grooves. |
| Flowers | White. Inflorescences axillary. Petals 4, suborbicular. Stamens many, exserted from corolla. |
| Fruits | Berry ellipsoid to urceolate (pot-shaped), smooth, red to purplish black when mature. With persistent calyx tube at apex. With 1 seed. |
| Flowering period | February to May in Hong Kong. |
| Fruiting period | June to September in Hong Kong. |
Scientific name above is based on Hong Kong Herbarium website : https://www.herbarium.gov.hk/en/hk-plant-database/plant-detail/index.html?pType=species&oID=7061
Scientific names from other databases
― Flora of China : Syzygium cumini (Linnaeus) Skeels
― Plants of the World Online : Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels