Dipteryx alata

Dipteryx alata is a large, undomesticated, edible nut-bearing tree from dryish tropical lowlands in central South America belonging to the legume family, Fabaceae, from the Dipterygeae tribe in the Faboideae subfamily. It is known in Spanish as almendro (almond) in Santa Cruz department in southern Bolivia, almendrillo in Pando in northern Bolivia, and shihuahuaco in the Department of Madre de Dios in southern Peru. In both these last two regions it shares the same name with Dipteryx micrantha. Both tree species are also known as mawi in the Ese Eja language spoken there. The common name baru appears to be the most used in Brazilian Portuguese. A long list of other names used in Brazil have been recorded; some of these names are barujo, coco-feijão, cumaruna, cumarurana, cumbaru, emburena-brava feijão-coco and imburana-brava. A number of names, such as cumaru and pau-cumaru, are shared with the closely-related Amazonian D. odorata, the tonka bean or cumaru tree, due to the similarity of the two trees. Harri Lorenzi complied most of these names in 1992, culled from the herbarium sheets he had collected, and the names can be traced to specific regions. The German botanist Julius Rudolph Theodor Vogel named the species alata, which means 'winged' and refers to the winged petiole of the leaves. As a legume, this tree belongs to the botanical family Fabaceae; this is also known as Leguminosae, and commonly known as the bean, or pea, family. The Dipterygeae tribe is an early branching of the Faboideae subfamily of the legumes, dating ~58 million years and preceding staple legumes such as soybeans, peas or peanuts by ~10 million years. It is quite distant from other less-known legumes such as Inga, Parkia, Tylosema, or tamarinds). The tree can measure up to 25 m in height and 0.7 m in diameter. It has compound leaves with 6 to 14 leaflets. The greenish-white flowers are 6 to 15mm in diameter. The form of the fruit (a bean pod) is ovoid and contains a juicy flesh within. The fruit has an average weight of 25g and average dimensions of 52.40 ± 4.48mm for length, and 38.31 ± 4.05 mm for width. Of these: It is native to Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru.