Colourful Kottang
Terminalia catappa
Common/ English name: Country almond- Family: Combretaceae
(The kumbuk/marudu family)
(Sinhala name: Kottamba/Kottang; Tamil name: Kottai)
This tree is not as spectacular as the Flamboyant or the Tabebuia but it is still a beautiful tree, with large, oval-shaped leaves clustered in whorls, with branches spreading horizontally and arranged in tiers, giving this tree a very distinct appearance.
Easily recognisable from the horizontal spread of its branches, arranged in whorls and from the brightly-coloured leaves (reds and yellows), when they are about to drop. Photograph left © Luxshmanan Nadaraja; top right: illustration by P. A. Miththapala; above right: Author
This species is native to Malaysia and the Andaman Islands and was introduced to
Sri Lanka from India. It is a common tree of the humid, low-country wet zone, planted along urban roadsides to provide shade. It sheds its leaves about twice a year. Then, the leaves turn from green to yellow to vermilion to crimson, lighting up this already lovely tree.
The flowers are small, white and star-shaped, arranged along thin, slightly curved bunches. Fruits are hard, ellipse-shaped and flattened. There is one seed per fruit, surrounded by an edible kernel, which tastes like almonds, hence the common name.
In my childhood, these fruits were something I picked up and ate but now I know that this tree is an important food source in urban settings for fruit-eaters, such as fruit bats.
Extracted from ‘What tree is that? The Ruk Rakaganno Layperson’s Guide to Some Trees of Sri Lanka’. Updated by the author using ‘Grown in Sri Lanka: cultivated flowering plants’ by Sriyanie Miththapala, Janaki Galappatti, and Siril Wijesundara (2015). The National Trust: Colombo.
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