Skip to main content

White leadtree (Leucaena leucocephala)

Lamtoro or white leadtree (Leucaena leucocephala) is a plant species in Fabaceae, a shrub with compound leaves, compound flowers, pods, adaptable, quickly wild in various tropical areas and is often used in greening land or preventing erosion and fodder.

L. leucocephala has a height of up to 20 m, although most are only about 2-10 m. Low and numerous branches with brown or grayish bark, rash and lenticels. The twigs are round thoracic with tight hair ends.

Dlium White leadtree (Leucaena leucocephala)


The leaves are compound and pinnate with 3-10 pairs and mostly with glands on the shaft just before the base of the lower fin. Leaves are small and triangular in shape. The leaves on each fin are 5-20 pairs, opposite, 6-16 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, tapered tip and oblique base, unequal, smooth hairy surface and frayed edges.

A compound flower in the form of a long-stemmed hump that collects in panicles and contains 2-6 nodes. Each head is composed of 100-180 buds that form a white or yellowish ball, 12-21 mm in diameter and 2-5 cm long. Flowers are small, bell-shaped tube petals, short-toothed and 3 mm. The crown is in the shape of a solet and 5 mm. Benangsari is 10 strands and 1 cm.

The pods are straight ribbons, flat and thin, 14-26 cm long, 2 cm wide, gaps between the seeds, green and finally greenish brown or dark brown when ripe and dry to open themselves. The fruit contains 15-30 seeds, transverse, oval-shaped breech or round egg inverted, green in color and shiny dark brown ends, 6-10 mm long and 3-4.5 mm wide.

White leadtree grows in warm tropical climates for temperatures of 25-30C, elevation of 0-1000 m, dry resistance, 650-3,000 mm of rainfall per year. Used as a shade tree, preventing erosion, a source of firewood and animal feed.





Leaves are used as green manure by immersing the leaves as fertilizer in the soil. The roots have nitrogen-fixing nodules as an organic source. It is often planted as a live fence, firebreak, windbreak, green belt, live vine for high-value entwining crops including pepper, vanilla, passion fruit and gadung. As a shelter in coffee and cocoa plantations.

Wood has a calorific value of 19,250 kJ/kg, burns slowly and produces less smoke and ash. Very good quality wood charcoal with a calorific value of 48,400 kJ/kg. Wet wood has a moisture content of 30-50%, but it dries well and is easy to work with.

Terrace wood is reddish brown or golden in color, medium texture, hard and strong as wood for utensils, furniture, pillars and floor coverings, but is easy to lose to termites and quickly rot outdoors. Usually used for paper making. Wood produces 50-52% pulp with low lignin content and 1.1-1.3 mm fiber.

Leaves and young twigs for animal feed and a good source of protein. The digestibility rate is 60-70% in ruminants or the highest among legumes and other tropical forage. The high content of mimosin can cause hair loss in non-ruminants.

Flowering all year round provides good food for honey bees. Leaves, flower buds and young pods are common for raw or pre-cooked dishes. Young fruit and seeds are used as vegetables. Old beans are roasted as a substitute for coffee with a fragrant aroma that is stronger than coffee.

Seeds are also processed to replace soybeans with almost the same nutrition. Carbohydrates in reducing sugars are 164.29 mg/g and in starches 179.50 mg/g. Protein amounted to 208.56 mg/g and fat 80.86 mg/g.

Plants produce tanning and coloring agents for red, brown and black from the bark, leaves and pods. The stem produces a kind of resin or gum which has good quality.

Ingredients include mimosin, leukanin, leucanol, protein, alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids, tannins, protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, iron, vitamins (A, B1, and C). Widely applied as a diuretic and intestinal worm killer. The seeds are dried and made into a powder to be boiled as a diabetes medicine. The young leaves are pounded and attached to the wound.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Subfamily: Mimosoideae
Tribe: Mimoseae
Genus: Leucaena
Species: Leucaena leucocephala
Subspecies: Leucaena leucocephala ssp. glabrata, Leucaena leucocephala ssp. ixtahuacana, Leucaena leucocephala ssp. leucocephala

Popular Posts

Black potato (Coleus rotundifolius)

Black potato ( Coleus rotundifolius ) is a species of plant in Lamiaceae, herbaceous, fibrous roots and tubers, erect and slightly creeping stems, quadrangular, thick, and slightly odorous. Single leaves, thick, membranous, opposite and alternate. Leaves are oval, dark green and shiny on the upper side, bright green on the lower side. Up to 5 cm long, up to 4 cm wide, slightly hairy and pinnate leaf veins. Leaf stalks up to 4 cm long. Small, purple flowers. Star-shaped petals, lip-shaped crown, dark to light purple with a slightly curved tube shape. Flowering from February-August. Small tubers, brown and white flesh and tuber length 2-4 cm. Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Tracheophyta Subphylum: Angiospermae Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Lamiales Family: Lamiaceae Subfamily: Nepetoideae Tribe: Ocimeae Subtribe: Plectranthinae Genus: Coleus Species: Coleus rotundifolius

Wild durian (Cullenia exarillata)

Wild durian ( Cullenia exarillata ) is a species of plant in the Malvaceae, a tall tree with smooth, greyish-white bark, peeling on older trees, a straight trunk, horizontal branches and often with a series of knob-like tubercles for flower and fruit attachment. C. exarillata has young branches and the underside of the leaves is covered with golden brown peltate or shield-like scales. The leaves are single, alternate, glabrous, glossy green on the upper side and covered with silvery or orange peltate scales on the underside. Hermaphroditic flowers are tubular and also covered with golden brown scales, 4-5 cm long and cream or reddish brown in color. Flowers have no petals, formed of tubular bracteoles and tubular calyxes, 5-lobed. Fruit is round, 10-13 cm in diameter, covered with thorns and clustered along the branches. Many seeds, reddish brown, 4-5 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. The seeds are enclosed by a fleshy, whitish aril. The fruit splits open when ripe and dries to release the s...

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...