The tree is easily grown in nurseries and easily transplanted. However, direct seeding is the most common method of propagation.
The genus name Syzygium is derived via Latin from the Greek syzygos, meaning yoked together, possibly referring to the paired leaves.
The Syzygium species cultivated for their economically important edible fleshy fruit. This include Syzygium cumin, Java plum a tree native to India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Syzygium cumin is a large tree with an exfoliating bark, elliptic-oblong leaves, dull white tetramerous flowers crowded in panicled cymes form branches below the leaves.
The fruits are smooth, rounded, shiny berry, purple black when ripe. It’s up to 1.5 inches in length. Each fruit contains a single, large, oblong seed surrounded by a thin layer of yellowish pulp.
Green fruit are eaten raw with salt or cooked. The ripe fruit are eaten fresh, the edible portion being between 80% and 90% water.
The edible pulp contains sugar, gallic acid, malic acid, tannins, glycosides of petunidin and malvidin and oleanolic acid. The pulp is juicy and acid but often has an undesirably astringent taste.
Seeds contain proteins (8.5%), tannins (19%), ellagic and gallic acids, and a glycoside, jamboline.
Syzygium cumin is widely used for the treatment of diabetes in certain part of India. The protective efficacy of Syzygium cumin seed extract against productive damage contributing to skin carcinogenesis.
Fresh bark juice mixed with milk is used in diarrhea. Bark is used in sore throat, bronchitis, asthma, ulcer and dysentery.
Syzygium cumini
