Heritiera littoralis Aiton

Habit: Evergreen tree up to 25 m tall. Tree architecture Rauh’s model.

Roots: Buttress well developed.

Trunk & bark: Trunk with a buttress at the base, bark fissured, dark or grey.

Leaves: Leaves simple, alternate, broadly elliptic, or ovate-elliptic, apex acute or acuminate, base obliquely cordate, lower surface covered with white fimbriate scales; petiole 1 – 2 cm long, short bipulvinate. Stipules subulate, caduceus.

Inflorescences or flowers: Inflorescence axillary panicle. Flowers small, unisexual, yellowish-green and bell-shaped; calyx cup-shaped; apetalous; male flowers, numerous, 3 4 mm across, androgynophore white, ringed by the anther lobes; female flowers 4 – 5 mm across, with sterile anthers at the base of ovary; styles as a short extension of the carpel, stigmas minute and recurved.

Fruits: Fruit woody samara, 8 – 12 cm across, ellipsoid, smooth, light brown, inner side flat with a prominent midrib bending towards the apex, outer side with a well-developed rudderlike crest or wing.

Seeds /seedling: Germination hypogeal, usually with the ventral side of the fruit downward.

Occurs away from the shore, around freshwater streams, sandy tidal banks in the back mangrove. Buoyant fruits are dispersed by currents.

Pollination by insect visitors.

Timber is valued for masts, firewood, house posts, joists, pressers, telegraph poles, wheelhubs and boatribs. Extract of seeds used to treat diarrhea and dysentery. Bark rich in tannin. Fruits are eaten by large mangrove crabs, monkeys and wild pigs.