UbosSpondias mombin

Did you know?

• In Brazil the fruit has two everyday names, cajá and taperebá, and the tree that bears it is the cajazeira^{[5, 9, 10]}.

• Ubos juice gets better overnight: the slight astringency of the fresh fruit fades as the juice stands^{[3, 4]}.

• Pigs eat the fallen fruit whole, which suits its English name, hog plum. In Brazil, tapirs, wild pigs, tortoises and even fish such as the pacu feed on the fruit and spread its seeds^{[4, 11]}.

• Farmers plant ubos in close rows as living fence posts, and its light, easily worked wood has been used for boxes, matches and dugout canoes^{[3, 4, 9]}.

• Ubos is a cousin of the mango, the cashew and the pistachio. All belong to the cashew family, Anacardiaceae^{[1, 6, 8]}.

Origins and history

Ubos is a deciduous tree of the humid lowland tropics, where it grows in both wild forest and farmland^{[3, 4, 5]}. It can grow taller than 25 meters (80 feet), and its thick bark is corky and deeply grooved^{[3, 4, 5]}. Large, branched clusters of small white flowers give way to oval fruits about 3 to 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) long. They ripen from green to yellow or light orange, with a thin skin and very juicy, tangy pulp^{[3, 4, 5]}. Carl Linnaeus described the species in his Species Plantarum of 1753^{[1, 2]}. Its home range runs from Mexico and the Caribbean through Central America to Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, and the tree also grows in West and Central Africa and parts of Asia^{[1, 3, 4]}.

The tree has many names: yellow mombin and hog plum in English, jobo and ciruela in Spanish, mombin in French, cajá and taperebá in Brazil, and ubos in Peru and Bolivia^{[4, 9, 10, 11, 12]}. Cajá comes from Tupi, an Indigenous language of Brazil^[11], and jobo from hobo, a word of Carib origin^[13]. In the Brazilian state of Acre the tree is also called taperebá-de-anta, the "tapir's taperebá"^[11]. It is eaten fresh or turned into pulp, juices, nectars, syrups, jams, jellies and ice creams^{[3, 4, 5]}. Animals seek out the fallen fruit too, and farmers feed the leaves to cattle^{[4, 9]}. In Brazil it grows both in the Amazon and in the Atlantic Forest, and it springs up around homes and villages as well as in the wild^[5].

Traditional uses

Clinical studies of ubos in people are still few, but its traditional use is rich: across its range, nearly every part of the tree has found a use, from the bark and leaves to the flowers, roots and fruit^{[3, 6]}.

• Teas of leaf, bark and flower

  Traditional preparations include simple teas: the leaves, flowers or bark are steeped in hot water or simmered as a decoction, then strained^{[3, 4, 6]}.

• Digestive comfort

  Teas of the bark and flowers have a long folk tradition for the digestive tract. Ubos supports digestive comfort.*^{[3, 4]}

• A calm mood

  In southwestern Nigeria, a tea of the leaves is a folk tradition for the nerves, and the fresh leaves are chewed to support memory.* Ubos supports a calm, balanced mood.*^[14]

• Women's health

  In Peruvian folk tradition, ubos is one of the plants women take for comfort during the monthly cycle. Ubos supports women's health through the monthly cycle.*^[14]

• A fruit for the table

  The ripe fruit is eaten fresh, and in Brazil its pulp is a much-loved, high-value flavor for juices and ice creams^{[4, 5]}.

Plant compounds

Ubos leaves and stems contain naturally occurring plant compounds called tannins, notably the ellagitannins geraniin and galloyl geraniin^{[6, 7]}.