Acacia mangium  

Acacia mangium Willd.

Family : Fabaceae(Subfamily: mimosoideae)

Common Name : മാഞ്ചിയം (Mal)

   : Hickory Wattle (Eng)

IUCN Status : Least concern (LC)

Hickory Wattle is a fast-growing, medium-sized, evergreen tree with expanded petioles that serve as leaves. Trees reach 30 m in height in their native range. The stem is usually straight and topped with a symmetrical crown of relatively light limbs; the lower bole is often fluted. The bark is reddish brown and lightly furrowed. Leaves (actually phyllodes) narrowly ellipti to elliptic, prominently veined, light or dark green. The small flowers are grouped in spikes, singly or in pairs in the leaf axils near the branch tips. The trees flower annually, usually at the end of the rainy season or the early part of the dry season.

Trees, to 30 m high, bark pale grey-brown to brown, rough, furrowed. Phyllode simple, alternate, 15-20 x 3-10 cm, elliptic-oblong or lanceolate, base attenuate, apex acute or obtuse, glabrous; 3-5-ribbed from the base, palmate, prominent, intercostae reticulate; petiole 7-10 mm long, stout, pulvinate, glabrous. Flowers bisexual, white, in loose axillary spikes of 12 cm long. Calyx gamosepalous. Corolla gamopetalous, deeply lobed. Stamens many; filaments free. Ovary puberulous. Pod, woody, twisting into spiral cluster on dehiscence; seeds brown, 3-5 x 2-3 mm, ovate-oblong, attached to the pod by orange-red folded funicle.

Use: mangium is widely used in commercial plantations to provide products such as pulp, firewood, charcoal and construction material.

Distribution : Australia, introduced to tropics and subtropics

Flowering & Fruiting : July-February