A tropical tree found in the Philippines, valued for its timber and other uses.
From Tagalog 'abilao,' the local Philippine name for this tree species. The term was adopted into English from the indigenous language of the Philippines.
Abilao is one of thousands of tree names that exist only in local languages—when colonial powers named plants, they often just adopted the indigenous names they found, which is why our botanical vocabulary is like a linguistic map of exploration!
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