Common Name:

General Information

Maclura cochinchinensis is a branched, thorny, spreading shrub with a scrambling habit, sometimes becoming a climber. It produces stems up to 10 metres long, and up to 15cm in diameter, with long thorns on the nodes[].
A famous dye plant in Indonesia, where it has long tradition of use as in batik[]. The wood is gathered from the wild leading to the plant becoming rare in parts of its range due to over-exploitation[]. The plant is also harvested from the wild for local use as a medicine.

Known Hazards

None known

Botanical References

Range

E. Asia - Indian subcontinent through Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Indo-China, to Australia.

Habitat

Thickets and brushwood in lowland forest and up to elevations of 1,800 metres[].

Properties

Edibility Rating
Medicinal Rating
Other Uses Rating
Habit	Shrub
Height	10.00 m
Growth Rate	Slow
Self-fertile	No
Cultivation Status	Wild

Cultivation Details

A slow growing plant, the stems reaching 10 - 15cm diameter in about 10 - 15 years[].
Formerly extensively used in 'batik' processes. The easy availability of synthetic dyes has largely reduced the use of this plant, but it is still locally used in dyeing processes[]. However, the traditional 'soga-batik' produced with it is very expensive and used only in ceremonies, particularly by Javanese nobility[]. As the demand for 'soga-batik' is decreasing and as it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain the wood, the use of this vegetable dye so highly esteemed in Javanese culture can be expected to disappear completely in the near future[].

Edible Uses

The young leaves are sometimes eaten raw[].

The fruit is edible[].

Medicinal

The wood is used to treat fevers[].

The fresh leaves, stripped of their petioles and either finely pounded or made into a decoction, are used in poultices for healing wounds of any soft parts of the body. For penetrating wounds, poultices are applied on both sides and covered with a dressing. Poultices and dressings are changed once a day[].

A decoction of the roots is effective in the treatment of rheumatism, oedema, blood stasis, dysmenorrhoea and contusions[]. A decoction of the roots is used to alleviate coughing[].

The roots and leaves can be collected all lhe year round. The roots are used dried and lhe leaves fresh[].

Other Uses

The heartwood, particularly of the larger roots, but also of the stem, is used to dye textiles yellow[]. A yellow dye is obtained when alum is used as a mordant, a green is obtained when it is mixed with indigo {Indigifera spp), red when combined with sappan wood (Caesalpinia sappan), and orange-green with turmeric(Curcuma longa)[, ].
It is also used in mixtures of dyes with other plants[]. It is an ingredient of the traditional 'soga-batik', together with the bark of Ceriops tagal and Peltophorum pterocarpum[]. Sometimes the dye is used for colouring other materials like mattings[].
In the traditional 'soga-batik' process the wood is chopped into small pieces (3 - 5 cm), and mixed with the chopped bark of Ceriops tagal and Peltophorum pterocarpum, usually in the ratio of 1:2:4, but other proportions are also used, depending on the desired colour[]. The mixture is put into a pan, covered with water, and boiled until it has thickened to the right consistency; this usually takes about 8 hours[]. After cooling, filtering, and about 2 hours of precipitation, the liquid is transferred to another pan and used for dyeing cotton textiles[]. For this purpose the textile, partly covered by wax where colouring is not wanted, is soaked in the warm to cool (but not hot) infusion until absorption is even. Then, the textile is dried in a shady place. This process of soaking and drying is repeated at least 20 times for good quality 'soga-batik'[].

Propagation

Seed -

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