Description and Rationale

The Philippines is a beautiful country made up of thousands of islands. The country is rich with tropical forests and has a variety of savory fruits. The country has a warm climate of about 20- 30C. By its warmth and humidity, many species of fruits are able to adapt to the Philippine environment. The main fruit that this project will be on is about an economical Filipino fruit called siniguela; which is also known as the Spanish plum.

How many siniguela trees are found in Valley Golf, Manila? How would this fruit be beneficial to the people in the environment? How are these fruits grown? Which vitamin or nutrient does this fruit give to humans and animals? Is there a different way to support people than just feeding them with fruits? Would this fruit be adaptable to the Valley Golf temperature, sunlight and soil? Is there a helpful way to introduce this type of fruit tree to the poor people in Valley Golf.

Siniguela trees grow up to around five meters tall with a stout trunk full of thick brown spreading branches. Asides from the pleasurable taste of its fruit, the siniguela tree is known for a few useful medical cures; such as the decoction of the bark would be used help cure dysentery and infantile tympanites, the sap of the bark is used in curing an infant’s mouth from stomatitis, and lastly, the decoction of the fruit is used for diarrhea, dysentery and gonorrhea. According to these effects, this species wouldn’t only be beneficial as a food source for the poor, but could also be a medical aid.

The focal purpose of this project will be to research the biology and methods on the irrigation of siniguela, through the plant growth advising websites as well as firsthand observations and experimentations of growing siniguela plants. These preliminary resources will help guide the experimental processes, where key variables in which siniguelas will be further explored. It is expected that this project will affect the lives of the poor Filipinos in a more supportive way by introducing this species to their environment. Hopefully, this experiment will enlighten those as an abundant biological resource.

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Biology

Common Names and Synonyms

Scientifically, siniguelas is called the spondias mombin and spondias lutea. Otherwise, it is referred to as common names such as saguelas (llk.), saraguelas (lbn.), sarguelas (llk.), sereguelas, and the spanish plum (Eng.).

Classification

Kingdom:  Plantae (Plants)

Division:   Magnoliophyta (flowering plants)

Class:     Magnoliopsida (Dicotyledons)

Order:     Sapindales

Family:    Anacardiaceae (Cashew)

Genus:    Spondias (Deciduous)

Species:   S. mombin

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Morphology and Physical Description

The sineguela tree has a stout trunk with thick, brown spreading branches and can be as tall as five meters. Its pinnate leaves are 15 to 25 cm long, with 5 to 9 pairs of leaflets that are shaped like an oblong- ovate of about 5-7 cm long. “Flowers are solitary or fascicled in the axils of the fallen leaves, reddish, about 3mm long.” Siniguelas are fruits grown in smooth texture with a yellowish green or a bit dark purple, thin-skinned, shaped in oblong or subglobose. The largest size is about 2.5 cm long, with a fleshy pericarp around a hard, large seed inside the fruit. “Although, when it is ripe, the seed will be surrounded by a soft, sweet, and aromatic juicy pulp.”

(http://www.stuartxchange.org/Sineguelas.html)

Sineguela is also known as a medicinal plant where the bark of the tree and the sap can be used as aiding severe diseases. “At first, the decoction of the bark is said to be used for dysentery and infantile tympanites, the sap of the bark is applied to the infant’s mouth for stomatites, lastly, the decoction of the fruit is used for diarrhea, dysentery and gonorrhea.” Otherwise, the fruit can also be used for removing any stains from clothing and for washing hands or seasoning for sweets and pickling. All of these methods are applicable for the Filipinos for their health and economy when this specie breaches into Cainta fruit markets.

(http://www.stuartxchange.org/Sineguelas.html)

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Getting Food

Most siniguelas get their energy from sunlight, which energy is used via the chlorophyll, to manufacture food from carbon dioxide from the air, and water and nutrients from the soil. Like most plants, the siniguela trees get nitrogen from the atmosphere. It also acquires phosphorus from the weathering of rocks in the soil that contain the inorganic mineral Apatite <Ca5(PO4)3(F,Cl,OH)>. One of the necessities for siniguela to grow is potassium, which is represented as K. More readily forms of K for plants is found on the surface of clay particles (colloids) where they can exchange places with other similar sized and positive charged ions in the soil solution.

Reproduction

The siniguela flowers during the dry season. Some ripe fruit can be found on the tree most of the year. Fruit usually starts to appear at about 5 years of age, however, when it has well-kept cuttings, it tends to produce earlier. Propagation is by seed or more by large cuttings, often 50-100 cm long and 5-10 cm thick (wood from the previous season or older). Patch budding is an alternative way of growing siniguela. Obviously, fresh seeds germinate well, and seeds germinate within 35-75 days.

Environmental Factors

The siniguela needs a mean annual rainfall of over 1,500 millimeters. It prefers to be in a great variety of soils, such as sandy soils, gravelly or heavy clays, but it prefers best in a rich, moist, relatively heavy soil. The siniguela tree grows in a great variety of humid tropical climates, often in a place with secondary succession. It is situated whether the evergreen lowland forest or semi-deciduous forest. It has been introduced to most tropical regions and survives well under different conditions. The tree is tolerant of most soil types and rainfall patterns. The tree gets severely damaged in freezing temperatures. It also prefers to be drier areas and high fertile floodplains, where they are waterlogged for 2 or 3 months of the year. Basically, siniguela needs direct sun all day long or for at least six hours including the hour of noon. Many sun loving plants will tolerate partial sun: sun all morning or all afternoon or four or five hours of midday sun.

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Origin and Distribution

The origin of the tree Spondias mombin is in Africa, where it is generally described as introduced from the Neotropics. Neotropic is an ecosystem that includes South and Central America, the Mexican lowlands, the Caribbean islands, and southern Florida, because these regions share a large number of plant and animal groups. The siniguela tree is native to Central America and northern South America and can be found in most lowland areas of the American tropics. The species probably originated in the Amazon Basin, as it is commonly established in most of the lowland forests of the region. It is also populated in Brazil, Central America and the West Indies. Basically, it started from Africa then gradually moved to the other parts of the world, but mainly in the trans-Atlantic tropical flora. Ironically, the siniguela tree is also native to parts of Southeast Asia.

Importance to People

(http://rain-tree.com/ubos.htm)

The siniguela tree parts are also used as cosmetic product that contained an extract of its leaves. In the patent, the French researchers found out that the leaves had de-pigmenting, antioxidant, anti-aging, cellular metabolism stimulation, and sunscreen effects for the skin. In other words, siniguela tree parts are still used today as a chief product for cosmetic uses.

Survivability and Endangered Status

Large areas of the tropical forests are rapidly decreasing as a result of human activities. In siniguelas, the small populations suffered significantly by reducing germination rate and fruit production compared to large forest population. On the other hand, 90-100% of the offspring produced in the small populated places are the product of pollen gene flow originating from forest located over 80-1000 m away; fortunately, the siniguela tree is relevantly pollinated by a variety of small insects – rarely pollinated by wasps that are both small and short-lived.

Though evolution might not be a fact, here is an in interesting quote about the evolution of pollinators:  “Paternity analyses revealed these highly coevolved pollinators to be effective agents of pollen movement over very long distances, routinely dispersing 6-14 km to receptive host trees, Because of such extensive pollen flow, breeding populations of figs were estimated to consist of hundreds of intermating individuals distributed over 108-632 km(2), an area substantially larger than has been documented for any other plant species, The observed patterns of dispersal in S. mombin (siniguela) demonstrate the potential for ecologically and evolutionarily significant pollinator and pollen movement among populations occurring in both disturbed and continuous forest environments. Moreover, given the integral relationship of figs, as keystone plant resources, to other plant and animal species, the extensive spatial scale of fig breeding units demonstrates how the conservation of biodiversity in spatially isolated reserves may be dependent on the preservation of forest elements in a surrounding fragmented landscape.” (http://www.citeulike.org/group/342/article/730744). Unfortunately, it is questionable whether the pollinators only evolved in a certain area or around the globe.

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Potential Solutions