Borassus flabellifer — known variously as the palmyra palm, toddy palm, doub palm, tala palm, or ice apple — is one of the most versatile and culturally embedded trees in South and Southeast Asia. In Sri Lanka, it is a familiar presence in the dry lowlands of the north and east, where its silhouette of fan-shaped fronds rising on a tall grey trunk has shaped the rural landscape for centuries. Every part of the tree has a documented use: the sap, the fruit, the leaves, the roots, and the timber.
What does the palmyra palm look like?
Borassus flabellifer is a robust, slow-to-establish but long-lived tree that can reach around 30 metres in height at maturity. The trunk is grey and sturdy, marked by distinctive rings of leaf scars where old fronds once attached. Unlike many palms, the old leaves remain on the trunk for several years before dropping cleanly, giving mature specimens a layered, architectural appearance.
The leaves are fan-shaped, reaching up to 3 metres in length, with stiff black teeth running along the margins of the leaf stalk. Like all members of the Borassus genus, this species is dioecious — male and female flowers appear on entirely separate trees. Male flowers are tiny, under 1 cm long, and cluster in semi-circular arrangements hidden beneath scale-like bracts within catkin-like inflorescences. Female flowers are far more conspicuous: golf-ball-sized and solitary, they sit directly on the surface of the inflorescence axis and, once pollinated, develop into large fleshy fruits.
What does the palmyra fruit taste like?
The fruit of Borassus flabellifer — sometimes called the palmyra fruit or, when young, ice apple — typically measures between 10 and 18 cm in diameter. It is borne in clusters and has a hard black to dark brown husk. When the fruit is still unripe, the top is sliced off to reveal translucent, pale-white jelly-like seed sockets, each one delicate and lightly sweet, broadly comparable to lychee flesh but with a milder, more neutral flavour. Inside each fruit there are typically two to four such seed sockets, each enclosing a watery fluid within the fleshy white body.
As the fruit ripens fully, the outer fibrous mesocarp softens to a dense, orange-yellow pulp that is sweet and edible, rich in vitamins A and C. At this stage, the fruit takes on a purple-blackish hue and the flesh carries a flavour closer to that of coconut flesh. The ripe pulp can be eaten raw, boiled, or roasted. The fruits also contain flabelliferrins — steroidal saponins that contribute a faintly bitter note — but these are generally not perceptible in the unripe jelly stage.
How is the palmyra palm used in South Asian cuisine?
Across South Asia, both the fruit and the sap of Borassus flabellifer have been incorporated into everyday food culture for generations. In West Bengal and Bangladesh, the yellowish viscous fluid from ripe fruit is used to prepare a range of traditional sweets. One classic preparation is taal-er bora — small fritters fried in mustard or sunflower oil. The same pulp is blended with thickened milk to make taal-kheer, a creamy dessert served during the summer months.
In Sri Lanka's northern and eastern provinces, the sap drawn from the inflorescence — known as toddy — is consumed fresh as a mildly sweet drink, fermented into palm wine (also called toddy), or reduced to make palm sugar (jaggery). This process of drawing sap from a palm is closely related to the tradition of kitul tapping practiced with a different palm species in the wet zone. Palm sugar from B. flabellifer is used widely in local confectionery and cooking.
The leaf sheaths and young inflorescences of the male tree, when still tender, are edible and have traditionally been eaten as a vegetable in Tamil-speaking communities of northern Sri Lanka.
Where does the palmyra palm grow in Sri Lanka?
In Sri Lanka, Borassus flabellifer is concentrated in the dry zone, particularly across the Northern Province and the Eastern Province. The Jaffna Peninsula has the densest population of palmyra palms on the island; the tree is so integral to Jaffna's identity and economy that it is regarded as a cultural symbol of the Tamil community there. It also grows in scattered stands through parts of the North Central Province, where ancient irrigated landscapes — including those around Polonnaruwa — provide the hot, dry conditions the species favours.
The tree tolerates poor soils and seasonal drought far better than most economic palms, making it well suited to the arid flat plains of the north. It does not establish naturally in the wet zone hill country.
What are the traditional medicinal uses of the palmyra palm?
Borassus flabellifer has a long history in Ayurvedic and folk medicine across the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka. The roots are traditionally described as cooling, diuretic, restorative, and anti-inflammatory in character. Preparations from the roots have been used to address burning sensations, excessive thirst, and conditions involving inflammation of the urinary tract.
The juice extracted from leaf stalks and young roots has been used as a remedy for gastric complaints and hiccoughs in traditional medicine systems. The ash produced by burning the male inflorescence has also been employed in various topical and digestive preparations, though the precise applications vary across regional traditions. These uses reflect a broader pattern of multi-purpose palm utilisation seen across tropical South Asia, where very little of such trees is discarded.
What other uses does the palmyra palm have?
Beyond food and medicine, Borassus flabellifer provides an impressive range of materials:
- Leaves: Dried palmyra leaves have been used for centuries as writing material. Palm-leaf manuscripts (ola manuscripts) made from this species preserve classical texts in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Sinhala, including religious and literary works of significant historical value.
- Timber: The hard outer wood of the trunk is durable and resistant to pests, making it useful for construction, particularly for rafters, columns, and bridges in traditional architecture across the dry zone.
- Leaf fibres and baskets: The broad fan leaves are split and woven into baskets, mats, fans, hats, and thatching material. This craft remains active in northern Sri Lanka.
- Root starch: The fleshy roots of young seedlings contain starch and have been eaten as a famine food historically.
- Toddy and arrack: Fermented palmyra sap is the basis for a distinctly northern variety of pol arrack, distinct in character from the coconut-based arrack more common in the south and west of the island.
How does Borassus flabellifer compare to the coconut palm?
Both the palmyra and the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) are economically critical palms in Sri Lanka, but they occupy very different ecological and cultural niches. The coconut thrives in coastal and wet-zone environments and dominates the south and west of the island. The palmyra, by contrast, is a dry-zone species with a stronghold in the north and east. The two trees are sometimes described as complementary: where the coconut defines the wet coastal lowlands, the palmyra defines the dry interior plains.
Productively, the coconut offers continuous year-round yields of nuts and sap, while the palmyra's sap season is more seasonal. However, the palmyra is considerably taller, longer-lived, and more drought-tolerant, and its timber is harder and more structurally useful than coconut timber.
Is the palmyra palm threatened or protected?
Borassus flabellifer is not currently considered threatened globally; it is listed as a species of least concern by conservation assessments and continues to grow in large numbers across its native range from India to Southeast Asia. In Sri Lanka, the palmyra population in the north has faced pressure from land-use changes and the long period of civil conflict that disrupted traditional agricultural and tapping practices in the region. Post-conflict recovery efforts have included programmes to rehabilitate palmyra cultivation in the Jaffna Peninsula, where the tree's cultural and economic importance to local livelihoods is well recognised.