Food Plants International - Plant Fact Sheets Canarium indicum - Galip Nut

Edible parts : Nuts, Seeds - oil

It is a large tree often up to 40m high. The stems are often twisted or rough and 1 m across the trunk and there are usually buttresses at the base of the tree. The buttresses are tall but thin. The small branches are more or less powdery. The vascular strands are unusual as can be seen in the pith or centre mass of cells, not spaced in a continuous circle as in many trees. The leaf of a galip tree is made up of 3 to 7 pairs of leaflets. The leaves do not have hairs on them. The leaflets are oblong and can be 7 to 28 cm long and 3 to 11 cm wide. In young trees the leaves are distinctly larger. The leaves are pointed at the tip and rounded at the base. The leaflets are stiff and glossy being dark green on top and light green underneath. At the base of a leaf where the stalk joins the branch there is a stipule and it is large and has saw like teeth around the edge. This is important for identifying species. The flowers are mostly produced at the end of the branches. A group of flowers are produced on the one stalk. The flowers are separately male and female often on separate trees. The male flowers have 6 anthers or pollen containers.

A tropical plant. The galip (Canarium indicum) grows in coastal areas, and is most common in the islands such as North Solomons Province, New Britain and New Ireland. It also occurs naturally in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Guam. It occurs on the New Guinea mainland and Papua as well as in Maluku in Indonesia. It has been taken to some other countries to grow. Galip nuts are common in the lowland rainforest. It suits humid locations. They mostly grow from sea level up to about 450 m altitude in the equatorial tropics but can be up to 900 m above sea level.