• Family : CLUSIACEAE
  (Garcinia Or Kokam Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : KOKAM FAMILY (कोकम फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : CALOPHYLLACEAE
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Calophyllum inophyllum L.
• Common name : Alexdranian Laurel, Common Poon, Dilo oil tree
• Vernacular name : Surpan, Sultan Champa, Surpunka (Hindi); Honne, Surahonne, Kalhonne (Kannada); Pinnai (Tamil); Ponna, Puna (Telugu); Poonang, Polang (Oria); Punnaga, Panchakeshera (Sanskrit); Pinna, Punna, Surampunna (Malayalam); Wumaka (Marathi)
• Habit : Tree
• Habitat : Plains, especially towards the coast and cultivated in gardens
• Comments / notes : Resin yellowish green and scented
• Key identification features : A handsome medium to large size evergreen tree with milky latex. Leaves are simple, opposite decussate, oblong-ovate with several closely set parallel lateral veins. Flowers are in axillary, few-flowered corymbose inflorescence, about 4 cm. across, fragrant, showy and bear many free stamens. Fruit is hard, globoid, of 3-4 cms dia. resembling a golf ball, green but turning yellow when ripe. Bark is dark reddish-brown with vertical furrows and horizontal cracks.
• Flower, Fruit : March-November
• Collector(s) Name : C.J.Saldanha & P.Prakash
• Collection Locality : Someshwar beach (Dakshina Kannada)
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Mysuru district, Udupi district, Dakshina Kannada district
  • Kerala : Kasaragod district, Kannur district, Kozhikode district, Malappuram district, Palakkad district, Thrissur district, Ernakulam district, Kottayam district, Alappuzha district, Kollam district, Thiruvananthapuram district
  • Tamil Nadu : All districts of Tamil Nadu
• Native : Mozambique, Tropical Asia
• World Distribution : Paleotropics
• Conservation Status : Least Concern (LC)
• Literature : Flora of Karnataka, Saldanha, 1984; Rao & Razi, 1981 - Mysore; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2003 - Udupi; Pullaiah et al., 2002 - Flora of Eastern Ghats Vol. 1; H.O. Saxena & M. Brahmam, 1994- Flora of Orissa Vol. 1; IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.1. ; Matthew, K.M., Flora of Tamil Nadu Carnatic, Vol.3 (1). Diocesan Press, Madras. 1983; Henry, Kumari & Chithra (1983). Flora of Tamil Nadu, India vol. 1; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Calophyllum inophyllum. Downloaded on 3 April 2025.

Botanical Description

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