Bignay (Antidesma bunius)
Bignay (Antidesma bunius) is a species of fruit tree in family Phyllanthaceae, native to Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and northern Australia. It is also known as bugnay, bignai and currant tree. Antidesma bunius is a short shrub, 3-8 m tall, or tall and erect tree, 15- 30 m tall. It has wide-spreading branches and evergreen leaves that are leathery, oval with a pointed tip, 20 cm long and 7 cm wide, with short petiole. The plant is dioecious with male and female flowers growing on separate trees. The heavy fragrance male flowers are produced in axillary or terminal spikes, while the greenish female flowers grows in terminal racemes, 7.5-20 cm long, which later form long strands of fruits. The spherical or ovoid fruits are about 1 cm in diameter, usually borne in pairs in heavy clusters. They ripen unevenly, so each cluster has a mixture of colors of white, red and black. The fruit has a sour taste when immature, and sweet with a tart taste when ripe. The skin of the fruit is thin and tough, and yields bright-red juice which leaves a purple stain on fabrics. The pulp is white with colorless juice. Each fruit contains a single, straw-colored hard stone. The fruit is usually made into jam. The extracted juice is dark red, nearly black, but it yields, with the addition of pectin, a deep-red jelly. Propagation is by seeds, cuttings, grafting or air-layering. The tree is proned to mealybugs and scale insects and termites.  Bignay (Antidesma bunius) Author: Thaumaturgist (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported) | ||
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