Canarium album
species of plant
Canarium album is a species of flowering plant in the family Burseraceae native in Cambodia, China, Singapore, Laos, and Vietnam. The Catalogue of Life does not record any sub-species. It produces an edible fruit commonly called Chinese olive or white olive (though it has no relation to Oleaceae let alone Olea) in those countries.
It is mostly cultivated in Thailand, but has also been spread on a smaller scale to Fiji and northern Queensland in Australia.
Uses
Culinary
The pulp of the tree's fruit and its seeds are edible, with a strong resinous flavor when they are fresh. Culinary oil can be extracted from the seed. Preserves can be made with the fruit, both sweet like jam or liquorice olives, or pickled preserves.
In China, a pickle called olive vegetable made from a mix of Canarium album fruit and mustard greens, is commonly used as a flavoring for congee and fried rice, with Teochew people specifically being very fond of the pickle.
Among the Teochew, it is custom in the Chinese New Year to keep these "olives" (which they call 珍果 diêng1 guê2 lit. 'precious nut' or 檳榔 bing1 lang5 'betel nuts') in a compartment of a traditional candy box: it was said to harken back to the Teochew's habits of chewing betel nut like the people in the neighbouring home regions during the Ming dynasty, but given up by late Qing dynasty or early Republican period where they consumed green olives as a substitute.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Canarium album” as species of plant. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5157337. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Canarium album” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.