Cannonball Mangrove (Xylocarpus granatum)

While studying the different kinds of mangroves found in the province of Palawan and trying to memorize the species name of the different species, the notable cannonball mangrove or scientifically speaking, Xylocarpus granatum, sticks to my mind. This is primarily because of the easy to remember features of the tree - the fruits look like cannonballs. These fruits do explode, but not of course in the sense that explosives do explode. When the fruits fall, the outer covering breaks and releases the seeds inside. It's like a fragment of shrapnels from a grenade. This is the way the tree disperses its fruits.

The cannonball mangrove is also known as the monkey puzzle nuts. I do not exactly know if indeed the monkeys use the fruits of the cannonball mangrove as puzzles. I imagine in my mind that probably they do because I can see monkeys hanging among the trees at one time when I was surveying the mangroves in the course of conducting a study on crocodiles.

If you want to know more about this on a more serious note, you may read my article titled simply as  Cannonball Mangrove: Xylocarpus  granatum.