Anisoptera costata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Anisoptera costata Korth.

Protologue: Temminck, Verh. Natuurl. Gesch. Ned. Overz. Bez., Botanie, Kruidk.: 67 (1841).

Synonyms

• Anisoptera cochinchinensis Pierre (1886),
• Anisoptera marginatoides Heim (1902),
• Anisoptera mindanensis Foxw. (1918).

Vernacular names

• Brunei: mersawa kesat
• Indonesia: masegar (Sumatra), mersawa daun lebar (Java), ketimpun (Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: mersawa kesat, mersawa terbak (Peninsular), pengiran kesat (Sabah)
• Philippines: Mindanao palosapis (general), balingan (Sulu)
• Burma: kaban-thangyin
• Cambodia: phdiek, phdiek krâham, phdiek sâ
• Laos: bak, maiz bak
• Thailand: krabak (central), krabak khok (north-eastern), krabak daeng (peninsular)
• Vietnam: vên vên, vên vên trắng, vên vên xanh.

Distribution

Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, southern Vietnam, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, western Java, Borneo and the Philippines.

Uses

The wood is used as mersawa. It is suitable for interior finish, ship planking, general construction, wooden tanks, tight cooperage, and veneer and plywood.

Observations

• A large to very large tree up to 50(-65) m tall, bole cylindrical, branchless for up to 35 m and up to 150 cm in diameter, with few buttresses of up to 4 m high and spreading out up to 2.5 m, continuing up the bole as ribs up to 10 m high, bark greyish-brown.
• Leaves 6-18 cm × 7-11 cm , oblong to obovate, dull yellowish or greenish lepidote beneath, with 8-22 pairs of secondary veins hardly or not depressed above.
• Flower bud ovoid, acute, stamens about 25, stylopodium cylindrical, densely pubescent.

A. costata is a very variable species (forms vary from apilose to densely pilose) which possibly hybridizes with A. curtisii. A costata grows commonly, often gregariously, in semi-evergreen dipterocarp forest and evergreen forest in seasonal areas and is rare but widespread in lowland forest of humid areas; up to 700 m altitude. The density of the wood is 460-850 kg/m³at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

Selected sources

30, 100, 175, 235, 258, 318, 359, 442, 461, 465, 561, 625, 628, 677, 748, 753, 804, 807.

Main genus page

• Anisoptera

Authors

• M.H.A. Hoffman (selection of species)