FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS / tropical · fruity · floral-juicy
Marian Plum
Category
FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS
Subcategory
tropical · fruity · floral-juicy
Origin
Volatility
Heart
Botanical
Bouea macrophylla Griff., Anacardiaceae (the cashew / mango family — NOT a true plum, not a Prunus)
Odor Strength
Medium
Producing Countries
Indonesia (gandaria — Java, Sumatra), Thailand (ma-prang — Chanthaburi region principally), Malaysia (kundang), Philippines, southern Vietnam.
Pyramid
Heart
A reconstructed Southeast Asian fruit accord — sweet-juicy, faintly floral, with mango-and-apricot tendencies. Despite the name, marian plum is NOT a Prunus — it belongs to the Anacardiaceae (cashew / mango family). The fruit's aroma reflects this: closer to mango than to any temperate plum.
Sharp fruity-ester top — methyl and ethyl butanoate forward, with a green-leaf hexanal lift.
After a few hours
After a few hours
The β-damascenone heart emerges, threading a mango-rose floral angle through the fruity body; methyl anthranilate adds grape-skin depth.
After a few days
After a few days
A quiet ester memory; the tropical character has burned off, leaving a faint sweet-floral tail.
The Full Story
Marian plum (Bouea macrophylla Griff., Anacardiaceae) is a Southeast Asian tropical fruit — small, yellow-to-orange at ripeness, with a single seed and a juicy flesh that lies between mango and apricot in profile. Despite the English name, it is not a plum: true plums are Prunus species in the Rosaceae family. Marian plum belongs to the same family as cashew, mango and pistachio — the Anacardiaceae — and shares mango's resin-canal anatomy [A].
This note in Première Peau. Sample all seven extraits in the Discovery Set.
Regional names
The species carries different names across its range: gandaria in Indonesia, ma-prang or ma-yong in Thailand, kundang or rumania in Malaysia. In Thailand it is cultivated principally in the Chanthaburi region; in Indonesia, Java and Sumatra are the main growing areas. The fruit is eaten ripe and sweet (the deep-yellow stage) or unripe and sour (the green stage, used in chutneys and rojak salads).
In perfumery
Marian plum has no commercial perfumery extract. The headspace profile of the ripe fruit is ester-dominated (methyl and ethyl butanoate forward) with a notable β-damascenone heart and methyl anthranilate floral angle [B] — closer to mango than to any temperate plum, as the botany would suggest. Any 'marian plum' note in fragrance is therefore a reconstruction, built from these compounds plus a small green-leaf top from hexanal or cis-3-hexenol. The accord is rare in fine fragrance.
[B] PubChem CID 5366074 — β-damascenone, CAS 23696-85-7. The plum-rose ketone central to many fruity-floral reconstructions. PubChem CID 8635 — methyl anthranilate, CAS 134-20-3.
Did You Know?
Did you know?
The common name is botanically misleading: marian plum (Bouea macrophylla) is not a plum at all. It belongs to the Anacardiaceae — the same family as cashew, mango, pistachio and sumac — and shares mango's resin-canal anatomy and (in some individuals) its potential allergenicity for people with urushiol sensitivity. True plums belong to the Prunus genus in the Rosaceae family. The 'plum' label was a colonial English convention applied to many unrelated tropical fruits with vaguely similar shape, and stuck despite the botanical mismatch.
Extraction & Chemistry
Extraction method: Not applicable. There is no commercial marian-plum essential oil or absolute — the fruit is principally a regional Southeast Asian culinary species, with limited commercial production outside Indonesia and Thailand. The fragrance accord is reconstructed from synthetic blocks; published GC-MS profiles of the headspace identify the dominant esters and ketones used.
Marian plum is a Fantasy/Concept tropical accord — there is no commercial extract. It sits in the heart, contributing a juicy-fruity lift with mango-floral character. It pairs naturally with mango, ylang-ylang, frangipani and tropical-fruit reconstructions. The note is rare in fine fragrance; when used, it functions as a regional Southeast Asian alternative to mango.
