Payena leerii (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Payena leerii (Teijsm. & Binnend.) Kurz

Protologue: Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 40: 69 (1871).

Synonyms

Payena croixiana Pierre (1885), Madhuca leerii (Teijsm. & Binnend.) Merr. (1923).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: balam beringin, balam suntei (Sumatra), kolan (Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: getah sundek, balam sundek (Peninsular)
• Philippines: edkoyan (Tagbanua).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, the Riau Archipelago, Bangka, Borneo and the southern Philippines (Palawan, Mindanao, Sulu Archipelago); cultivated in Java, rarely also in tropical Africa and South America.

Uses

The timber is used as bitis, sometimes as nyatoh. The latex was formerly important as gutta-percha. The fruits are edible.

Observations

A medium-sized to fairly large tree up to 40 m tall, with columnar bole up to 80 cm in diameter, buttressed; leaves broadly ovate to oblong-lanceolate, glabrous on both sides; flowers very small, up to 0.5 cm long, white or yellowish-white; fruit cone-shaped or narrowly so, with a flat broad base, 2.5-5 cm long, glabrous or subglabrous. P. leerii is closely related to P. obscura and is most commonly found in primary forests, up to 1000 m altitude. The timber is usually heavy with a density of 760-1060 kg/m³at 15% moisture content. The gutta-percha is of good quality, but the yield is generally low.

Selected sources

35, 36, 100, 102, 255, 315, 318, 322, 451, 461, 486, 581, 727, 730, 779.