Madhuca sericea (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Madhuca sericea (Miq.) H.J. Lam

Protologue: Bull. Jard. Bot. Buitenzorg, sér. 3, 7: 163 (1925).

Synonyms

• Bassia argentea C.B. Clarke (1882).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: melikuran, kemodan, ketiau (Sumatra)
• Malaysia: sundik (Peninsular).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Lingga, Bangka and Borneo (Sabah, East Kalimantan).

Uses

The timber is used as nyatoh, particularly for construction purposes such as house and bridge building.

Observations

• A fairly large tree up to 35 m tall with columnar, straight bole up to 50 cm in diameter, sometimes with small buttresses.
• Leaves scattered or loosely clustered at tips of twigs, narrowly elliptical to elliptical or obovate, 6.5-25 cm × 3-10 cm, secondary veins diminishing until inconspicuous near margin, yellowish-brown or silvery-grey velvety beneath, stipules up to 2 mm long, fairly persistent but ultimately caducous.
• Flowers with sepals hairy at both sides but inner sepals glabrous inside, 8-11-lobed corolla glabrous except between stamens, 18-24 stamens and hairy ovary.
• Fruit ellipsoid or ovoid, 2-3.5 cm × 1-1.5 cm, with woody pericarp initially hairy, 1-2-seeded.
• Seed with very thin albumen and fleshy cotyledons.

Var. ridleyi (Gand.) Ng from Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore differs in the longer petiole which has a closed groove above. M. sericea has been confused with M. penicillata and occurs scattered in primary lowland forest up to 700 m altitude. The timber is purplish-brown to greyish-brown and has a density of 670-920 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content, which makes it a heavy nyatoh or even bitis.

Selected sources

100, 102, 190, 318, 581, 733, 779, 781, 792.

Main genus page

• Madhuca (Timbers)

Authors

• R.H.M.J. Lemmens (selection of species)