Morinda citrifolia

Also known as Noni Tree, this tree is native to Australia, India, Indochina, and Southeast Asia. 

Noni is a small evergreen tree thats to about 5 to 9m tall. 

The dark and shiny leaves are large and simple. They are deeply veined.

The small and white flowers grow from a fleshy structure, blooming and fruity all year round. 

The fruits are about 4 to 7cm and have smelly pulp. They are green at first and turn light yellow or white when ripe. The fruit has numerous seeds.

This tree was first cultivated by the Polynesians and can be foundalong rivers and coastal habitats. The Noni fruit is extremely smelly when ripe and can be eaten or made into juice used to make dyes or fed to livestock. The tree is also useful for its antiseptic qualities and it is used in traditional medicine.

In Chinese medicine, it is used to contain fever and as a tonic. The plant is similarly used in Japan. A Southeast Asian plant, it is commonly used in native medicines of the region. In Malaysia, the heated leaves are applied to the chest and abdomen to treat coughs nausea, colic and enlarged spleen. In Philippines, the juice of the leaves is given for arthritis. In Indochina, the fruit are prescribed for lumbago, asthma and dysentery.

Xylocarpus granatum

The Nyireh Bunga or Mangrove Cannonball is native to countries from East Africa to tropical Asia, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands.

A small tree of about 3 to 8m, the Mangrove Cannonball is an evergreen mangrove tree. It has long and snaking buttresses. The bark is light brown, yellowish, and greenish in colour, and smooth and flaking. 

The leaves of the Mangrove Cannonball are simple pinnate and spirally arranged. The young leaves are light green while the old leaves are dark green in colour. The leaves turn orange red when withering. They are narrowly-shaped and have rounded tips. 

The small flowers at only 8mm are are fragrant with white petals.

The Mangrove Cannonball produced fruits in capsules as wide as 25cm. These capsules are woody and globose, splitting open into four valves to reveal 5 to 20 seeds. 

The wood of the Mangrove Cannonball is used in boat-building, furniture wood and firewood.

This species has phytoremediation potential, because it accumulates manganese, zinc, boron, iron and copper. The bark contains tannin, so used for dying cloths, tanning leather, toughening and preserving fishing nets. Hair oil can be made using oil extracted from the seeds. 

Rhizophora mucronata

Also known as Bakau Kurap, this mangrove tree is native to Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Comoros, Djibouti, and Egypt.

Bakua Kurap is a small to medium-sized tree that can grow up to about 15m tall, though it only grows to about 3m only. Those closer to the sea grow taller while those closer inland tend to be shorter. The bark is a dark colour, almost black, and horizontally fissured. It has numerous aerial stilt roots that buttress the trunk.

The shiny green leaves are shaped like eyes at about 8 to 15cm long with an elongated tip. They are leathery and spottoed with tiny spots on the underside of the leaf. They have pale yellowish stipules present.

The brown fruits resemble upside-down pears about 3 to 4cm big and have small short sepals. The fruits are viviparous, meaning  they start to germinate while still on attached to the tree. The root will begin to elongate and may reach a length of about a metre long before the propagule detaches itself from the branch and takes root in the mud below.

Avicennia alba

Commonly known as Api-api Putih, this mangrove tree is native to Malaysia and the Pacific Islands.

The Api-api Putih is a mangrove tree that is relatively small and shrubby. It has a smooth, greenish-black bart that is finely fissure. The crown is dense and bushy, branching near the base of the trunk. It has shallow roots that produce pencil-shaped roots called pneumatophore that protrude out of the soil surface. These are aerial roots that play a part in gaseous exchange and removal of salt from the plant's vascular system. 

The leaves shiny green leaves are dark green on the upper surface and silvery-white on the underside. They are about 15cm long and grow in opposite pairs.

The flowers of the Api-api Putih are yellow to orange in colour, growing clusters to form a cross-shaped inflorescence. They small flower have four petals and a diameter of about 4mm when expanded. 

The fruits are a flat greyish-green capsule containing a single seed each. 

The heartwood of the Api-api Putih was traditionally used to make tonics while the bark and seeds are used as fish poison. The resin was used in birth control. 

Bruguiera gymnorrhiza

Also known as Black Mangrove or Tumu Merah in Malay, this mangrove tree is native to South and East Africa, Madagascar through to India, Myanmar, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, throughout Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, northern Australia to Ryuku Islands, Polynesia and Samoa.

This medium-sized tree is slow-growing and grows to a height of 10m at most, with a initial conical crown to a more irregular shape. The bark is black in colour. It has short buttresses and characteristic knee roots that are green in colour at the beginning but becomes grey, glossy, and hairless with time.

The glossy apple green leaves grow at the ends of branches, turning yellow with age. The leaves have a pointed tip and interpetiolar stipules that drop off early. 

The flowers grow singly, around 4cm long with 8 to 18 petals and sepals. The petals are a creamy white colour while the sepals are green in shade and pink in direct sun. Its flowers are pollinated by sunbirds. It is the preferred local food plant for caterpillars of the moth, Olene mendosa. 

The fruits of the Black Mangrow is a fleshy berry about 3cm long. It germinates on the tree for form an incipient root which is actually a brown hypocotyl. 

Fruits and leaves are edible. The leaves are also eaten as salad or flavouring. The inner flesh of the hypocotyl is eaten with sugar.

The bark is used as a medicine for diarrhoea and occasionally malaria. An extract of the bark is also used as a source of tannin and dye. Fruits are reportedly used as an astringent and food.

The brownish or yellowish brown, heavy, fine-grained wood is used as timber for piling,  house posts, furniture, and rafters by the Malays. The wood is also made into charcoal.

Syzygium grande

Commonly known as Sea Apple of Jambu Laut, this tree is native to tropical countries like India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indochina, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia. 

The Sea Apple is a fast-growing tree that can grow up to 30m. The crown can range from oblong to irregularly shaped. The bark is rough, dull grey, fissured lightly and a little flaky. 

The leaves are shiny and leathery with short stalks and a drip tip. They are arrange in pairs opposite of each other. There is a distinct ring of veins around the leaf margin which can be seen by looking at the underside of the leaf. 

The flowers of the Sea Apple are yellowish-white and resemble pom-poms. They grow in clusters and have white petals with numerous white stamens, lasting for about 4 to 5 days. Its flowers produce nectars, and are probably pollinated by bats. The nectar can also attract insects like butterflies and birds. 

The single fruits are oblong to round, with a green leathery skin. Bats would also eat its fruits and help dispersed its seeds. It is also the host plant of the moth, Parasa lepida. The fruits are edible.

The wood produced by this tree is classified under the medium hard wood group. In our region, a general trade name ‘Kelat’ is given to timber produced from Syzygium trees.

Casuarina equisetifolia

Also known as Casuarina or Rhu Tree, the Casuarina tree is native to Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and from Myanmar to Vietnam.

The Casuarina is a tall evergreen tree that can grow up to 35m tall. Although it resembles a pine tree or conifer in appearance, it is actually an angiosperm (flowering plant) and not related to the non-flowering pine family at all. The crown is distinctly conical in young trees, but becomes more irregular with maturity. It has a delicate, wispy appearance. The trunk of the tree is straight and branching only begins from 10m above the ground. They may occasionally have buttress roots. 

The leaves of the Casuarina are tiny and pointed scales arranged in whorls of 6 to 10 at the joints of twigs. The delicate needle-like twigs are greenish. Photosynthesis takes place in the twigs instead of the tiny leaves. 

The monoecious flowers are tiny and wind pollinated. The tiny male flowers appear on short spikes while female flowers appear as pink fluffy bits on a short stalk. These will turn into green cones. Upon ripening, the cones will turn brown and the bracts on the cone will open up to release small winged nuts. The cones are dispersed by wind. 

The bark has medicinal value and is used to treat dysentery and diarrhoea. The twigs are used for swelling and as a wash for beri beri. 

The wood of this tree is extremely hard and dense, and has been used for construction of stilts, poles and fences in coastal areas. It is also an excellent fuel wood and is among the hottest burning fuel woods in the world. 

It is also frequently planted as a windbreak and to stabilise coastal sand dunes.