''Manilkara hexandra'' is a tree species in the tribe

Sapoteae The Sapotoideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Sapotaceae. Plants in the subfamily are characterized by their leather-like leaves, often growing in a stipule fashion. The seeds of the tree ''Argania spinosa'' produce an edible ...

, in the family

Sapotaceae 240px, '' Madhuca longifolia'' var. ''latifolia'' in Narsapur, Medak district, India The Sapotaceae are a family (biology), family of flowering plants belonging to the order (biology), order Ericales. The family includes about 800 species of ev ...

. It is native to much of south Asia (China:

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slight ...

and southern Guangxi provinces; the Indian subcontinent: Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka; Indo-China: Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Its vernacular names vary regionally; for example "Palu", "Palai"(பாலை) in Tamil or "Rayan" (පලු) in

Sinhalese Sinhala may refer to: * Something of or related to the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka * Sinhalese people * Sinhala language Sinhala ( ; , ''siṁhala'', ), sometimes called Sinhalese (), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language prima ...

. It is locally known as the Khirni tree in parts of Bangladesh and India. In the

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

language it is called ''Ulakkaippaalai'' or ''Kanuppaalai.'' ''Manilkara hexandra'' is a slow-growing but fairly large evergreen species. It grows in tropical and temperate forests. The tree typically attains some 12 to 25 metres tall and one to three metres in trunk circumference. The bark is grayish and rough. The wood is hard, durable, and heavy; the density is variously reported as ranging from about 0.83 to 1.08 tonnes per cubic metre, partly depending on the degree of drying. It is used for heavy structural work, gate posts, and big beams. but also is used for

turning Turning is a machining process in which a cutting tool, typically a non-rotary tool bit, describes a helix toolpath by moving more or less linearly while the workpiece rotates. Usually the term "turning" is reserved for the generation ...

and carpentry in spite of the difficulties of working with such dense wood.Wood database: Workability
/ref> It is used as

rootstock A rootstock is part of a plant, often an underground part, from which new above-ground growth can be produced. It could also be described as a stem with a well developed root system, to which a bud from another plant is grafted. It can refer to a ...

for ''

Manilkara zapota ''Manilkara zapota'', commonly known as sapodilla (), sapote, naseberry, nispero or chicle, is a long-lived, evergreen tree native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. An example natural occurrence is in coastal Yucatán in the ...

'', and its own

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...

is edible.

References

hexandra Plants described in 1795 Trees of China Trees of the Indian subcontinent Trees of Indo-China Trees of Nepal {{Sapotaceae-stub