စိန်တစ်လုံးသရက်

Myanmar Name – Thayet

Common Name – Mango

Botanical Name – Mangifera indica L.

Family Name – Anacardiaceae

Habitat – South-East Asia

Habit – A large evergreen tree to 20 m tall with a dark green, umbrella-shaped crown.

Bark – Trunk stout, 90 cm in diameter; bark brown, smoothish, with many thin fissures; thick, becoming darker, rough and scaly or furrowed; branchlets rather stout, pale green and hairless. Inner bark light brown and bitter. A whitish latex exudes from cut twigs and a resin from cuts in the trunk.

Leaves – Leaves alternate, simple, leathery, oblong-lanceolate, 16-30 x 3-7 cm, on flowering branches, up to 50 cm on sterile branches, curved upward from the midrib and sometimes with edges a little wavy. Young leaves red, aging to shiny dark green above, lighter below, with yellow or white venation; petioles 4.5 cm long, striate and swollen at the base.

Inflorescence – Inflorescence terminal panicle, 16 cm or more in length, a much-branched panicle bearing many very small (4 mm) greenish-white or pinkish flowers.

Flower – Flowers radially symmetrical, usually have 5 spreading petals, 3-5 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, streaked with red, imbricate, with the median petal prolonged like a crest at the base, finely hairy and fragrant, partly male and partly bisexual; stalk short; 5 stamens, 1 fertile, the other 4 shorter and sterile, borne in a disc. The flower has a conspicuous 5-lobed disc between the petals and stamens. Calyx yellow-green, very short, deeply 5-lobed; 5 sepals, each 2- 2.5 mm long x 1-1.5 mm broad, green with whitish margin, or yellowish green, hairy outside.

Fruit – Fruit an irregularly egg-shaped and slightly compressed fleshy drupe, 8-12 (max. 30) cm long, attached at the broadest end on a pendulous stalk. The skin smooth, greenish-yellow, sometimes tinged with red. The underlying yellow-orange flesh varies in quality from soft, sweet, juicy and fiber-free in high-quality selected (clonal) varieties to turpentine flavoured and fibrous in wild seedlings.

Seed – The single, compressed-ovoid seed is encased in the white fibrous inner layer of the fruit.

Flowering and Fruiting Time – March – June

Usage – Various parts of plant are used as a dentrifrice, antiseptic, astringent, diaphoretic, stomachic, vermifuge, tonic, laxative and diuretic and to treat diarrhea, dysentery, anaemia, asthma, bronchitis, cough, hypertension, insomnia, rheumatism, toothache, leucorrhoea, haemorrhage and piles. Wood is use for Furniture, ukuleles, veneer, plywood, turned objects, and flooring.