Skip to main content

Talok (Muntingia calabura)

Talok or kersen or calabur tree (Muntingia calabura L.) is a tree species in Muntingiaceae, producing small, sweet, bright green and red fruits. These shrubs generally grow only 3-6 m tall, enduring green, continue to flower and bear fruit throughout the year.

M. calabura has horizontal branches, hanging at the ends and forming a shady shade. Twigs and leaves have fine hair mixed with glandular hair. The leaves are flat, alternating in asymmetrical strands, round lanceolate eggs, jagged and pointed edges, measuring 1-4x4-14 cm, dense gray haired underside and short stem. Tapering leaves in the form of threads, the longer they dry and fall out, while in other parts rudimentary.

Dlium Talok (Muntingia calabura)

Talok flowers appear among the leaves in a file containing up to 5 buds on the armpit above the growing leaves, long-stemmed, twins and five, petals sharing in, tapered tangle shaped thread and fine hair. Flat crown, round egg upside down, white thin, bald and 1 cm in diameter.

Stamen amounts to 10 to more than 100 strands. The blooming flower protrudes outward, above the leaves, but after becoming a fruit it hangs down and is hidden under the leaf blade. Generally only one or two flowers become fruit in each file.

Kersen fruit is long stem, almost perfect round, 1 cm to 1.5 cm in diameter, green, yellow and finally red, crowned with the rest of the stigma that does not fall like a five-pointed black star. Contains thousands of seeds, smooth, yellowish white, immersed in meat and has very sweet juices.

In every 100 grams the calabur tree fruit contains water (77.8 g), protein (0.324 g), fat (1.56 g), fiber (4.6 g), calcium (124.6 mg), phosphorus (84,0 mg), iron (1.18 mg), carotene (0.019 mg), vitamin B1 (Thiamine) (0.065 mg), riboflavin (0.037 mg), niacin (0.554 mg), and vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid or antioxidants ) (80.5 mg).

Talok fruit is traditionally used for antiseptics, antispasmodics, relieves headaches, alleviates early symptoms of flu and colds, anti-inflammation, treats gout, cures diabetes, relieves flu symptoms, overcomes seizures in the digestive tract due to gastritis and diarrhea, lowers high blood pressure, reduce cholesterol levels in the blood, anti-tumor and restore the natural moisture of the skin.



The M. calabura fruit is preferred mainly by children, birds and bats. School children often climb trees, leaving traces of broken branches and peeled bark. This fruit is also processed for jam ingredients. Usually this tree is used as a shade for farmers to rest in the middle of rice fields.

Soft and easy to dry kersen wood, very useful as firewood. Easy to peel bark for straps and sanitary cloth. Leaves are brewed like tea. Fruit-eating birds often visit this tree to eat sweet fruit. Various types of fruit-eating bats come at night for the same purpose.

Calabur tree seeds are not digested by birds and bats, they are seed spreaders. Small trees often grow as wild seedlings on the curb, gutters or appear in the middle of cracks in floor or fence walls and eventually grow quickly into shade trees.

Kersen trees are often found in crowded cities, on the edge of sidewalks and parking lots, on the banks of rivers and places that are usually prolonged dry. This plant is one of the most pioneering plants found in human habitation in the tropics.

Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Malvales
Family: Muntingiaceae
Genus: Muntingia
Species: M. calabura
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular

Indian rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia)

Sonokeling or Java palisandre or Indian rosewood ( Dalbergia latifolia ) is a species of plant in the Fabaceae, a large tree producing hardwood, medium weight and high quality, rounded leaves, thin and broad pods, highly adaptive, grows in dry and rocky landscapes with lots of sunlight. D. latifolia has medium to large size, cylindrical stems, up to 40 m high with a ring of up to 2 m, the bark is brownish gray and slightly cracked longitudinally. The crown is dense, dome-shaped and sheds leaves. The leaves are compound and pinnate oddly with 5-7 strands that have different sizes and appear alternately on the shaft. The leaves are round or elongated in width or heart, the upper surface is green and the surface is pale green. The flowers are small, 0.5-1 cm long and clustered in panicles. The pods are green to brown when ripe and are elongated lanceolate, pointed at the base and tip. The pods have 1-4 seeds which are soft and brownish. Indian rosewood grows at elevations below 600 m,
2 comments
Read more

Elephant bell gourd (Trichosanthes tricuspidata)

Elephant bell gourd ( Trichosanthes tricuspidata ) is a plant species in the Cucurbitaceae, stems grow elongated to propagate or climb, many branches, cylindrical in shape and green in color. T. cochinchinensis has stem tips or branches that twist to attach themselves to a support or other plant. It grows to climb to cover a support, usually on another plant, up to several meters and creeps along the ground to reach another support. Arrow-shaped leaves, split base, sharp apex and two wings at an acute angle, have many veins ending at a sharp edge, green and have a long petiole. Single flower is white. The fruit is round to oval, ends with a tail, young green and turns red with maturity, thin skin, thick flesh and reddish yellow, has a short stalk and hangs. The seeds are in the middle of the fruit. Seeds are white, oval and flat. Black coated seeds. Elephant bell gourd grows wild in primary and secondary forests, agricultural land, roadsides, watersheds, especially on slopes, damp a
Post a Comment
Read more

Redflower ragleaf (Crassocephalum crepidioides)

Sintrong or ebolo or thickhead or redflower ragleaf ( Crassocephalum crepidioides ) are plant species in Asteraceae, terma height 25-100 cm, white fibrous roots, generally grow wild on the roadside, yard gardens or abandoned lands at altitude 200- 2500 m. C. crepidioides has erect or horizontal stems along the soil surface, vascular, soft, non-woody, shallow grooves, green, rough surface and short white hair, aromatic fragrance when squeezed. Petiole is spread on stems, tubular and eared. Single leaf, spread out, green, 8-20 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, longitudinal or round inverted eggshell with a narrow base along the stalk. Pointed tip, flat-edged or curved to pinnate, jagged rough and pointed. The top leaves are smaller and often sit. Compound flowers grow throughout the year in humps that are arranged in terminal flat panicles and androgynous. Green cuffs with orange-brown to brick-red tips, cylindrical for 13-16 mm long and 5-6 mm wide. The crown is yellow with a brownish red
1 comment
Read more