Achariaceae contains 30 genera and 145 species of shrubs to trees, or rarely climbing herbs, which are scattered throughout the tropics. The Indo-Malesian Hydnocarpus (40 species) is the largest genus in the family. Ryparosa (18 species) is Malesian, and Lindackeria (14 species) grows in the Americas and Africa. Most species of Achariaceae were previously included in Flacourtiaceae, while Achariaceae in the original sense was a small and little-known family of herbaceous or semishrubby plants from Africa.
Florally, members of Achariaceae are distinctive in that the parts are spiral, not whorled, or if it is whorled, there are more petals than sepals, and the petals have a scale at the base on their inner surface. There are often numerous stamens. The seeds are distinctive because of the vascular bundles clearly visible on their surfaces. The seeds of Hydnocarpus are a source of chaulmoogra oil, at one time important in the treatment of leprosy. The presumed active agent in the oil, hydnocarpic acid, is believed to have antibiotic properties. The seeds of Caloncoba echinata, from west-central Africa, are the source of gorli oil, also used in the treatment of leprosy. (These old treatments for leprosy have been replaced by sulfone drugs and other modern antibiotics.) Achariaceae is chemically quite different from Salicaceae in that many members have cyanogenic compounds of a very distinctive type.
Pangium edule Reinw.
CLASSIFICATION
Kingdom: Plantae
Divisio: Magnoliophyta
Classis: Magnoliopsida
Ordo: Malphigiales
Familia: Achariaceae
Genus: Pangium
Species: Pangium edule Reinw
Common name: Picung
CHARACTERISTIC
Seeds like stone
BENEFIT
Shade plant
DESCRIPTION
Trees with spreading and drooping branches and dense crown, about 10-25 m tall. Trunk buttressed when old, diameter up to 1 m, bark brownish, smooth. Young shoots and branchlets fistular, brownish tomentose, turning glabrous and marbled with leaf scars when mature. Leaves simple, alternate, clustered or crowded near apices, cordate to broadly ovate, about 12-30 x 7.5-20 cm across, base subtruncate to cordate, margin entire, apex acute with mucronate tip, chartaceous, dark green, shining and glabrous above, paler scurfy, more along the midrib and veins beneath, lateral veins 5-7, on either side of the midrib, primary veins upturned, gradually diminishing apically towards the margins, petiole usually widened or swollen at the base, about 10-30 cm long. Flowers unisexual (dioecious) or rarely monoecious sometimes.
Male flowers: waxy greenish white, about 4-9 in brownish tomentose corymbs, about 6-24 cm long, pedicels ferrous tomentose about 2.5-4 cm long, calyx closed, rusty tomentose when young, globose, splitting irregularly into 2-3 caducous reflexed segments during anthesis, petals 4-9, imbricate, oblong-ovate, slightly connate at the base, margins recurved ciliate, fleshy, waxy white, with orbicular epipetalous scales, arched, densely appressed brownish pilose, about 7-9 mm long. Stamens 20-30, filaments filiform, free, broad, waxy white, about half as long as petals, anthers 2 loculed, ovoid or globose, dorsifixed, pollen fleshy, tricolporate, lanceolate, spheroidal, oblate, pistillode absent. Female flowers: Solitary or 2-4 in axillary corymbs, usually from the older nodes of old branches and main stem, calyx and petals similar to male flowers but bigger, staminodes usually as many as petals, linear-oblong, inantherous, ovary superior, ovoid, creamy white tomentose, carpels 2-4, connate, unilocular, apex beaked, ovules usually equaling the number of placentae, stigma sessile. Fruit indehiscent berry, ellipsoid-oblong, about 15-25 x 7.5-12 cm across, about 1-2 kilogram in weight, brownish tomentose, pericarp brown, hard and thick. Seeds 20-25, triangular-ovoid, about 3.5-5 cm across, embedded in white aromatic pulp, irregularly compressed, testa hard, oily endosperm, cotyledons foliaceous (Sharma, 1993).
DISTRIBUTION
Mexico, South America, subtropics and tropic areas
LOCATION
STATUS
Exist
REFERENCES
Hidayat, Topik & Abdurrahman, Eman. 2017. Keanekaragaman Tumbuhan Biji di Kampus UPI
Bandung. Bandung: UPI Press.
Blume. 1848. The Drawing of Leave, Flower and Seed of Pangium edule Reinw. Retrieved
Puryono. 2014. Seed of Pangium edule Reinw. Retrieved from
.