LANG KHAI
(Baccaurea macrophylla)

Fruits of lang khai

Family:  Euphorbiaceae

Synonyms:  Baccaurea malayana, Cheilosa malayana

Other names: Bua tampoi, gurak gatuk, luk pui

Lang khai is a tropical fruit from South East Asia and is believed to have been originated somewhere in South Thailand and Malaysia.  It also grows in Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo etc. Sometimes, this fruit is also cultivated in these areas.  

Description:

A medium sized evergreen monoecious tree growing up to 25 m.

Leaves are elliptic-oblong, 25cm long 10 cm wide.

Flowers borne on the main stem and big branches on spike-like panicles,  slender and 8 cm long,  occurring solitary or fascicled on the branches; fruiting racemes short.

Fruit is an ellipsoid capsule, 4-5 cm in diameter, dehiscent, pale green when young and becomes yellowish brown when mature; pericarp thick covering white flesh (pulp); each fruit has 4-6 pulps in a fruit; flesh sweet and pleasant to eat.

Utilization:

The fruits are eaten fresh.  They taste quite good with a pleasant blend of sweet and sour and therefore are liked by people.  Consequently, these are also sold in small as well as in big city supermarkets. 

Cultivation:

Lang-khae was earlier propagated by seeds. However, there is an increasing tendency among growers now to multiply this fruit by vegetative methods like budding and grafting.   as seedling plants gave rise to more male than the female trees. Budding and grafting of the desired scions on seedling rootstock are more preferable. The grafted tree can produce fruits within 4-5 years, which is quicker compared to that of the seedling tree.

            This fruit seems to have a good potential for commercialization as an orchard fruit. The fruit fetches quite good price in the market.  As lang khai tree is a heavy bearer producing upto 300 kg fruits from a tree.  As the fruit fetches a good price in the market, so it can be a good source of income.

            Efforts should be made to domesticate lang khae and develop it as a new commercial fruit crop.