Diospyros maritima (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Diospyros maritima Blume

Protologue: Bijdr. fl. Ned. Ind. part 13: 669 (1826).

Synonyms

Diospyros laxa (R.Br.) Bailey (1883), Diospyros liukiuensis Makino (1908), Diospyros camarinensis Merr. (1915).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: kunyit (Java), belu itam perempuan (Seram), kayu itam lewo (Sulawesi)
• Philippines: malatinta, kanomai (general), tanag (Palawan).

Distribution

The Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and northern Australia.

Uses

The pale wood is used locally, e.g. for musical instruments, furniture, inlaying and novelties; it is also reported to produce good-quality charcoal. The fruits are used to poison fish.

Observations

A small to medium-sized tree up to 25 m tall, bole cylindrical, short, up to 50(-100) cm in diameter, without buttresses, bark surface lenticellate, black, inner bark pale yellow; leaves ovate-elliptical to oblong-lanceolate, 5-35 cm × 3-12.5 cm, base obtuse to slightly attenuate, apex obtuse, glabrous, tertiary venation reticulate, inconspicuous; male flowers in 3-8-flowered cymes, 4(-5)-merous, stamens 15-18(-20); female flowers in 1-3-flowered cymes, 4-merous, calyx lobes valvate, sericeous outside and inside, corolla divided to about halfway, staminodes 4-10, ovary with a single style with 3-4 stigmatic lobes and 8 uni-ovulate locules; fruit depressed globose, 1.5-4 cm in diameter. D. maritima occurs in thickets and forest along the coast and inland, up to 150(-700) m altitude. The density of the wood is 620-795 kg/m³at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

42, 77, 125, 374, 527.