Choerospondias axillaris

Lapsi (Choerospondias axillaris)
Common names	Lapsi, Nepali hog plum
Scientific name	Choerospondias axillaris
Family	Anacardiaceae
Genus	Choerospondias
Order	Sapindales
Native range	Nepal to southern China, Indochina, Taiwan and Japan
Tree size	Deciduous tree to about 20–25 m, trunk to about 0.5 m diameter
Fruit	Ovoid drupe about 25 × 22 mm (Thai material), grey-green to yellow when ripe; red 1.5 × 2.5 cm in Vietnamese material
Propagation	Seed (slow, variable), chip budding in February
Harvest	September–January (Nepal)
Years to fruit	Reports vary: about 3 years or 7–10 years; only female trees bear
Uses	Fresh fruit, pickles, titaura/mada fruit leather, candies, chutney

Lapsi (Nepali hog plum) is the common name for Choerospondias axillaris, a deciduous tree of the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) native from Nepal eastward through the Himalaya to southern China, Indochina, Taiwan and Japan. The accepted name was first published in 1937; earlier names include Spondias axillaris, Poupartia axillaris, Poupartia fordii and Rhus bodinieri.^[1] In Chinese the fruit is called nan suan zao and in Japanese chanchin-modoki.^[2] Lapsi is one of Nepal's traditional mid-hill fruit trees, eaten fresh or processed into pickles, dried fruit-leather sheets (titaura, mada), candies, chutney and beverages.^[3]

Description

Choerospondias axillaris at Sim's Park, Coonoor, India

The tree is fast-growing, light-demanding and deciduous, reaching about 20 m in horticultural accounts and to 25 m with a trunk to about 50 cm diameter in Thai forest material.^[4][5] The bark is greyish-brown and exudes a sticky, colourless resin that blackens on exposure. Leaves are imparipinnate, 30–40 cm long with four to fifteen pairs of leaflets, and turn red before falling.^[4] The boiled young leaves are edible, a use recorded from northern Thailand.^[5]

Flowers are small (0.3–0.5 cm), yellowish or red, in terminal or axillary panicles on male trees and in racemes on female trees; the species is mostly dioecious, with occasional bisexual flowers.^[4] Nepali growers call the pistillate trees pothi lapsi (flowers with empty anthers) and the staminate trees bhale lapsi (flowers without a gynoecium).^[6]

The fruit is a fleshy ovoid drupe with a single hard pyrene marked with four to five depressions, each holding a flattened brown seed.^[5] In measured Thai material drupes averaged 25.3 × 22.4 × 22.6 mm and ripened from grey-green to yellow; a Vietnamese description records a red drupe about 1.5 × 2.5 cm with acidic edible flesh and five apical pores on the stone, so colour and size vary with provenance.^[4][5] Japanese plants are sometimes separated as Choerospondias axillaris var. japonica.^[4]

Cultivation

Soil and water

Native stands occupy disturbed and secondary forest in the wet-forest belt, below about 600 m in the southern part of the range and to 1,000 m in Sikkim, on deep, wet clay or sandy-clay soils.^[4] In northern Thailand the species grows in evergreen forest from 700 to 1,600 m.^[5] In Nepal, lapsi is an agroforestry tree of the mid- and low-hill districts, grown from about 850 to 1,900 m; district surveys recorded it in 301 village development committees across 29 hill districts, with more than 40,000 trees already bearing and over 450,000 newly planted.^[7] A review places the species at 900–2,000 m in the subtropical–temperate transition.^[3]

Sun and humidity

The species is light-demanding and typical of disturbed forest edges rather than deep shade, so open sites suit it best.^[5][4] The native atmosphere is humid and monsoonal; in the Sindhupalchok production district of Nepal the climate averages about 1,615 mm of rain a year.^[8]

Seasonal changes

Trees are deciduous, with the foliage reddening before it falls in the cool, drier season.^[4] In Vietnam flowering runs April–June and fruiting July–September.^[4] In Nepal the harvest is mostly September–January: unripe fruit is deep green and turns yellowish as it matures, and farmers beat the bunches with long wooden or bamboo sticks or shake the branches.^[6] Himalayan populations are reported to tolerate mild frost and drought.^[3] In cultivation the monsoon pattern translates to a growth flush in the wet season, winter leaf drop, and irrigation through rainless dry months where they occur.

Propagation

Pyrenes (seeds) of Choerospondias axillaris

Seed is the usual route but germination is slow and uneven. In a nursery trial in northern Thailand, ripe pyrenes were soaked in water to remove the pulp and sown in a 2:1:1 forest-soil:coconut-husk:peanut-husk mix under about 40% shade; across 41 wild parent trees, 42.3 ± 22.3% of pyrenes produced at least one seedling (range 8.3–91.7%), germination stretched over 13–183 days (mean 134.8 days), and the mean dormancy period ran 23–169 days (mean 98.7 days).^[5] Expect slow, staggered emergence rather than a quick stand.

Because trees are dioecious and sex is hard to identify in young seedlings,^[7] seed-grown plantings carry an uncertain share of males. A seed distributor working with Himalayan material reports planting four to five seedlings to obtain one fruiting female, with the distributed seed-grown plants doing well for recipients in the United States and Puerto Rico.^[9]

For a known female, vegetative propagation is the reliable route. In Himalayan field trials, chip budding in the first three weeks of February was the most successful method tested, reaching up to 90% take; softwood cuttings reached about 40% and hardwood cuttings about 7%, while side grafting at the same time scored much lower. Axenic tissue culture was also established on DKV medium with 1 mg/l BAP.^[7]

Flowering, fruiting, and harvest

Only female trees bear fruit, and non-bearing trees are among the most frequently reported production problems in Nepali orchards; difficulty identifying sex early is the leading constraint named by growers.^[8] Reported years to first fruit vary: one producer survey states bearing begins about three years after planting and continues to about 20 years, while the same paper cites other work reporting that only female trees fruit, normally 7–10 years after planting.^[8] The two figures are not reconciled in the literature, so a seed-grown tree is best expected between roughly 3 and 10 years, with grafting of a known female shortening the wait.

A 2004–2005 fruit survey in the Kathmandu valley found strong provenance variation: the heaviest fruit came from Nuwakot (14.4 g, 2.9 cm diameter) and Pharping (14.1 g), the lightest from Godawari, with shape and pulp-to-seed and pulp-to-peel ratios also varying, and the authors recommended molecular selection of better lines.^[10] In Sindhupalchok, surveyed holdings averaged 4.2 trees and 485.7 kg of fruit per farm (about 109.6 kg per tree), with a benefit-cost ratio of 2.79.^[8]

Fruit and uses

The ripe fruit is slightly sour and citric, eaten fresh or pickled; one grower describes a flavour that is "sour first and sweet then or vice versa, with little pulp", and the fruit is sometimes called "candy fruit".^[6][9] Most of the crop is processed. In the traditional cottage industry around Sanga, Kavrepalanchowk, fruit is washed, boiled with salt for three to four hours (the salt acting as a preservative), drained, the pulp ground and the seed extracted by hand, then the salty pulp is spread on wooden planks and sun-dried for four to five days into titaura sheets; more than a dozen food items are made, including mada, pickles, chutney and a home-fermented alcohol.^[6]

In a modern formulation trial, fruit boiled 8–10 minutes, pulped and blended with sugar, then cabinet-dried at 55 °C for 7–9 hours to 19–20% moisture produced a fruit leather; the richest analysis (80:20 pulp:sugar) gave protein 3.87 g, fat 0.88 g, fibre 10.95 g and ash 1.09 g per 100 g, with vitamin C 67 mg/100 g, total polyphenols 88.33 mg GAE/g and flavonoids 37.57 mg QE/g (DPPH inhibition 43.2%), while the taste panel preferred a 57.5:42.5 pulp:sugar blend. These values describe the processed leather, not the fresh fruit.^[11] Reviews consistently describe lapsi as rich in vitamin C and carbohydrates.^[3]

Beyond the fruit, the boiled young leaves are eaten,^[5] the fibrous bark is used for rope, the stony pyrenes fuel brick furnaces and serve as a precursor for activated carbon, and a bark preparation is used as a traditional burn treatment in Vietnam.^[3] The burn use is a reported traditional practice, not a demonstrated medical effect.

Marginal-climate growing

Temperate experience is thin but instructive. Trees and Shrubs Online suggests USDA zone 9 as the practical boundary for garden cultivation.^[4] A seed-grown tree at Tregrehan, Cornwall, reached about 8 m by 2005 with shoots extending over 1 m in a season, but the wood proved brittle in strong wind; a wall-grown specimen at Glasnevin, accessioned 1983, was kept at about 2.5 m by heavy pruning.^[4] Himalayan plants are reported to tolerate mild frost and drought in their native belt.^[3] These are single-garden observations and reported tolerances, not demonstrated species-wide hardiness.

Photos

References

• ↑ [1] Choerospondias axillaris — Plants of the World Online (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew).

• ↑ [2] Choerospondias axillaris — GBIF Backbone Taxonomy species page.

• ↑ [3] Rai, S., et al. Lapsi (Choerospondias axillaris): A review on traditional uses, chemical constituents and biological activities. Heliyon (open access).

• ↑ [4] Choerospondias axillaris — Trees and Shrubs Online (Grimshaw & Bayton).

• ↑ [5] Pakkad, G., Torre, F., Elliott, S. & Blakesley, D. (2003). Selecting seed trees for a forest restoration program: a case study using Spondias axillaris Roxb. (Anacardiaceae). Forest Ecology and Management 182: 363–370.

• ↑ [6] Chhetri, R.B. & Gauchan, D.P. (2007). Traditional knowledge on fruit pulp processing of Lapsi in Kavrepalanchowk district of Nepal. Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 6(1): 46–49.

• ↑ [7] Paudel, K.C., Pieber, K., Klumpp, R. & Laimer, M. (2003). Evaluation of Lapsi tree (Choerospondias axillaris, Roxb.) for fruit production in Nepal. Die Bodenkultur 54(1): 1–9.

• ↑ [8] Adhikari, S., Pandey, S.R., Bhandari, P.L., Kattel, R.R. & Dhakal, S.C. (2023). Determinants of Nepalese hog plum (Choerospondias axillaris Roxb.) production in Sindhupalchok, Nepal. Cogent Food & Agriculture 9(1), 2176282.

• ↑ [9] Tropical Fruit Forum — Nepalese Lapsi (Choerospondias axillaris or Spondias axillaris)? (topic 5536).

• ↑ [10] Gotame, T.P. (2008). Assessment of Fruit Characteristics Variations in Nepalese Hog Plum (Lapsi) (Choerospondias axillaris, Roxb) Fruits. Proceedings 5th National Seminar on Horticulture, NARC, pp. 68–70.

• ↑ [11] KC, Y., Dangal, A., Thapa, S., et al. (2022). Nutritional, phytochemicals, and sensory analysis of Lapsi (Choerospondias axillaris) fruit leather. International Journal of Food Properties 25(1): 960–975.

Image credits

• File:Choerospondias axillaris Anacardiaceae.jpg — Ripe fruits of Choerospondias axillaris, Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India (subject from file-page description). Creator: Aparajita Datta, CC BY-SA 3.0 (license). File page: Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Aparajita Datta, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

• File:Choerospondias axillaris (Anacardiaceae) at Sim's Park, Coonoor.JPG — Choerospondias axillaris at Sim's Park, Coonoor, India (subject from file-page description). Creator: Gauri Wur Sem, CC BY-SA 3.0 (license). File page: Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Gauri Wur Sem, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

• File:Choerospondias axillaris seeds, by Omar Hoftun.jpg — Pyrenes (seeds) of Choerospondias axillaris (subject from file-page description). Creator: Omar Hoftun, CC BY-SA 4.0 (license). File page: Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Omar Hoftun, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

• File:Choerospondias axillaris seed P1130688 01.jpg — Seed (pyrene) of Choerospondias axillaris (subject from file-page description). Creator: Rohit Naniwadekar, CC BY-SA 4.0 (license). File page: Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Rohit Naniwadekar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

• File:Anacardiaceae- Choerospondias axillaris (hog plum, sour jujube) 1.jpg — Choerospondias axillaris in Gaoligongshan, Yunnan, China, photographed at about 1,700 m (subject from file-page title; plant part not confirmed in metadata). Creators: Kristof Zyskowski & Yulia Bereshpolova, CC BY 2.0 (license). File page: Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Kristof Zyskowski & Yulia Bereshpolova, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.