Description Shrub or tree to 6 m, with spreading branches and stubby twigs, with a milky or yellowish rufescent exudate. Female flowers borne singly, with elliptic 3-celled, triovulate ovary with 3 spreading bifurcate stigmata. Germplasm Reported from the Central and South American Centers of Diversity, physic nut, or cvs thereof, is reported to tolerate Slope. There is an endemic species in Madagascars J. mahafalensis , with equal energetic promise. Though native to America, the species is almost pantropical now, widely planted as a medicinal plant which soon tends to establish itself.
Cultivation Grows readily, from cuttings or seeds.
Cuttings strike root so easily that the plant can be used as an energy-producing living fence post. Harvesting For medicinal purposes, the seeds are harvested as needed. For energy purposes, seeds might be harvested all at once, the active medicinal compounds might be extracted from the seed, before or after the oil, leaving the oil cake for biomass or manure. In a startling study, Gaydou et al. Oil palm was considered energetically most promising.