Cembirit (Tabernaemontana macrocarpa)

Cembirit or Pacman (Tabernaemontana macrocarpa) is a species of shrub in Apocynaceae or a tree up to 20 meters tall with a stem diameter of up to 50 centimeters. The bark is yellowish brown, brown, gray-brown or gray and abundant white gummy.

T. macrocarpa grows in forests ranging from sea level to 1,500 meters with the natural habitat of the karst ecosystem, blooms throughout the year and is a pre-disturbance plant. Fragrant flowers feature a combination of cream, white and orange corolla lobes.

Single leaves intersect in the form of a push to a lancet with a size of 6-14 cm long and 1-7 cm wide. The base and tip of the leaf are pointed with a flat edge, the surface is slippery, the top is green and the bottom is light green.

Cembirit has fruit with single or paired follicles, round or oval for each 11-16 cm in diameter. The fruit is green and will turn orange as it ages. They will break completely and face down when ripe and the inside is dark red.

Each fruit contains 90-120 black seeds with a percentage of germination per fruit reaching 75.75% or 49 seeds from 66 seeds per fruit. Pacman in a mixed forest community is able to produce up to 1225 flowers, 29 fruits and 2.37% fecundity.

This fruit has attractive colors and exotic shapes, but has a bitter taste and contains poison. Traditional medicine uses sap to treat tuberculosis, infectious diseases of the lungs, herpes, scabies and toothache medications. The Borneo people smear darts as poisons to hunt.

Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Apocynaceae
Genus: Tabernaemontana
Species: T. macrocarpa

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