Skip to main content


Bignay (Antidesma bunius)

Bignay or buni (Antidesma bunius) is a plant species in Phyllanthaceae, deciduous trees, up to 30 m tall, straight stems and 20-25 cm in diameter, many branches and shade, small fruits arranged in a long stalk, eaten raw or deep cooking or fermented into grapes.

A. bunius has leaves with 1 cm long stalks, alternating, oblong-lanceolate, 19-25 cm long, 4-10 cm wide, rounded base, sharp or blunt tip, flat margins, dark green and shiny upper surface, bright lower surface, a main bone runs in the middle and appears on the underside of the leaf.

Dlium Bignay (Antidesma bunius)


Male and female flowers are located in different trees and arranged in the form of panicles 6-20 cm long. Female flower size is larger than male flowers. Terminal or axillary and narrowly spicate or racemose.

Male flowers sit, cupular petals consisting of 3-4 short rounded petals, 3-4 stamens and reddish in color. Female flowers have a stalk, bell-shaped petals, 3-4 lobes measuring 1x2 mm, ovary ovoid, 3-4 pistil heads with small discs.

Wet and drupe fruit, round or ovoid and 8-10 mm in diameter. First it is bright green with a sour taste, then red and bluish black with a sweet taste. Fruit arranged in bunches with a diameter of 3 cm. Elongated ovate seeds, 6-8 mm long and 4.5-5.5 mm wide.

Bignay grows wild in the tropics at an altitude of 0-1000 m, tolerant of drought and damp. Fresh edible fruit, jam and jelly ingredients, extracts for refreshing drinks and produce special wine. Sometimes used to mix cold drinks. Young fruit and young leaves are used as a substitute for vinegar.



Young leaves to give aroma to fish or boiled meat, fresh vegetables and cooked with rice. Bark and leaves contain alkaloids which have medicinal properties, but are also poisonous. The wood is reddish, hard and has a pretty good quality.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Malpighiales
Family: Phyllanthaceae
Genus: Antidesma
Species: Antidesma bunius

Popular Posts

A deep-sea isopod Bathyopsurus nybelini adapted to feed submerged Sargassum algae

NEWS - Incredible footage shows a marine species, Bathyopsurus nybelini , feeding on something that sinks from the ocean’s surface. Researchers using the submersible Alvin found the isopod swimming 3.7 miles down using its paddle-like legs to catch an unexpected food source: Sargassum. Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the University of Montana, SUNY Geneseo, Willamette University and the University of Rhode Island found the algae sinking, while the isopod waited and adapted specifically to find and feed on the sinking nutrient source. The Sargassum lives on the surface for photosynthesis. The discovery of a deep-sea animal that relies on food that sinks from the waters miles above underscores the close relationship between the surface and the deep. “It’s fascinating to see this beautiful animal actively interacting with sargassum, so deep in the ocean. This isopod is extremely rare; only a handful of specimens were collected during the groundbreaking Swedis

Ngamugawi wirnagarri reveals evolution of coelacanth fish and history of life on earth

NEWS - An ancient Devonian coelacanth has been remarkably well preserved in a remote location in Western Australia linked to increased tectonic activity. An international team of researchers analysed fossils of the primitive fish from the Gogo Formation of Ngamugawi wirngarri , which straddles a key transition period in the history of coelacanths, between the most primitive and more modern forms. The new fish species adds to the evidence for Earth’s evolutionary journey. Climate change, asteroid strikes and plate tectonics are all key subjects in the origins and extinctions of animals that played a major role in evolution. Is the world’s oldest ‘living fossil’ the coelacanth still evolving? “We found that plate tectonic activity had a major influence on the rate of coelacanth evolution. New species are more likely to have evolved during periods of increased tectonic activity when new habitats were divided and created,” says Alice Clement of Flinders University in Adelaide. The Late Dev

Integrative taxonomy reveals presence a new species West African mane jelly (Cyanea altafissura)

NEWS - A new species of Cyanea is described from samples collected in the Gulf of Guinea during 2017-2019. The species is a member of the nozakii group that has discontinuous radial septa and is characterized by, among other things, deeper rhopalial than velar marginal clefts, uniform papillose exumbrella, up to 200 tentacles per cluster and a dense network of anastomosing canals in a broad quadrate fold. West African mane jelly ( Cyanea altafissura ) can be genetically distinguished from relatives in the ITS1 and COI regions as confirmed by several phylogenies and other analyses. This is the first record of a member of the nozakii group in the Atlantic Ocean and the first description of a genus Cyanea from the west coast of Africa and the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Cyanea PĂ©ron & Lesueur (1810) currently includes 17 species and is the second largest number of valid and recognized species in the Semaeostomeae of Agassiz (1862), after Aurelia Lamarck (1816). Both genera are rarely re