Balakat Tree

Balakat is a large tree with alternate glossy leaves and dark reddish brown bark. It’s flowers are yellowish–white in color and are numerous in leaf axils while its fruit is a one-seeded berry-like fleshy drupe almost circular in shape. It can grow up to 25m and about 100cm in diameter.

This tree’s wood is used for general construction work in the form of plywood and particle board. Mabalacat city in Pampanga Province was named after it in 1712, using the indigenous Negrito word mabalacat meaning “forest of balakat”.