josef george kamel, s.j. drawing of dungon leaf

Dungon [Heritiera littoralis Dryand. Ex W. Ait] Syn. Dongo
This slow-growing hardwood three was used extensively as posts for the colonial house or bahay na bato because the lumber was impervious to moisture and resistant to even the most assiduous termite. Even if the dugon or dungon-late, is a small tree, growing to about 10 meters, it was also used as post for the lofty church nave, in which case trunks of dungon were joined together.

Dungon thrives best along the seashore or in coastal forests. Its seed has a very tough shell and needs to be soaked in water for a while before it germinates. Dungon has yellowish-green bell-shaped flowers.

It is also known as dungon-mangle, dungon-lawlaw, dungon latian, maladungon and malarungon.