Longan Dimocarpus longan Lour. Euphoria longan Steud. Botanically, it is placed in a separate genus, and is currently designated Dimocarpus longan Lour. Euphoria longan Steud. According to the esteemed scholar, Prof. G. Weidman Groff, the longan is less important to the Chinese as an edible fruit, more widely used than the lychee in Oriental medicine.
New growth is wine-colored and showy.
The seed is round, jet-black, shining, with a circular white spot at the base, giving it the aspect of an eye. It thrives much better on higher ground than the lychee and endures more frost. The lungan is more seldom grown under orchard conditions than is the lychee. There is not so large a demand for the fruit and the trees therefore more scattered although one often finds attractive groups of lungan. Groff says that the longan was introduced into India in 1798 but, in Indian literature, it is averred that the longan is native not only to China but also to southwestern India and the forests of upper Assam and the Garo hills, and is cultivated in Bengal and elsewhere as an ornamental and shade tree.