bauno

noun

bau·no

bä-ˈü(ˌ)nō,

ˈbau̇-

plural baunoes or baunos

: a wild mango (Mangifera verticillata) found in the Philippines having a juicy rich subacid fruit

Word History

Etymology

probably borrowed from Cebuano of Mindanao

Note: The vernacular name bauno was introduced into botanical literature by the Canadian-born botanist Charles Budd Robinson (1871-1913) in the article "Alabastra Philippinensia, III," Philippine Journal of Science, C. Botany, vol. 6, no. 5 (November, 1911), pp. 338-39. Robinson quotes a Spanish report on the tree by a Jesuit missionary, F. Sánchez, who observed it in the vicinity of Dapitan, present-day Zamboango del Norte province, Mindanao. Robinson assumed, probably correctly, that the word (according to Sánchez, "un árbol de hermosa y ancha copa, llamado bauno" - "a tree with a wide and beautiful crown, called bauno") is a "local name." Whether the word is from regional Cebuano/Visayan or from a variety of Subanen/Subanun/Subanon is unclear. For comparative material, see the Proto-Western Malayo-Polynesian base *balunuq, "Mangifera sp.," in Robert Blust and Stephen Trussel, Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (on the World Wide Web). A number of Austronesian vernacular forms are cited in A.J.G.H. Kostermans, The Mangoes: Their Botany, Nomenclature, Horticulture and Utilization (Academic Press, 2012), p. 151; note that Kostermans and other recent authors subsume Robinson's Mangifera verticillata under pre-existing Mangifera caesia.