Hopea helferi (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Hopea helferi (Dyer) Brandis

Protologue: Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot. 31: 62 (1895).

Synonyms

Hopea dealbata Hance (1877).

Vernacular names

• Malaysia: giam lintah bukit (general), damar mata kucing, damar siput (Peninsular)
• Burma: thingan kyauk
• Cambodia: kôki:(r) daèk, phdiek krâhâ:m
• Thailand: krabok-krang (general), ngon-kaibok (peninsular), takhian-nuu (eastern)
• Vietnam: sao xanh.

Distribution

Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, the Andaman Islands and Peninsular Malaysia.

Uses

H. helferi is a valuable source of construction timber, especially for boat construction. The tree yields a resin which is used locally.

Observations

A medium-sized or large tree of up to 50 m tall, bole often straight, branchless for 15-21 m and up to 165 cm in diameter, buttresses sometimes large and coarse, bark surface fibrous, dark brown; young parts densely buff puberulent, more or less caducous on twigs, leaf beneath and calyx; leaves oblong-lanceolate or occasionally oblanceolate, (5-)10-24 cm × (2-)4.5-8 cm, leathery, silvery lepidote beneath, base cuneate to occasionally cordate, subequal, apex shortly broadly acuminate or obtuse, venation scalariform, midrib shallowly channelled above, secondary veins (12-)14-16 pairs, slender but prominent beneath, obscure above; stamens 15, ovary and stylopodium cylindrical, subtruncate, style shorter than ovary and stylopodium, columnar; 2 longer fruit calyx lobes up to 6.5 cm × 1.8 cm, spatulate, obtuse, 3 shorter ones up to 5 mm × 3 mm, ovate. H. helferi occurs on deep soils especially on sedimentary rocks on hill slopes and undulating land in semi-evergreen forest up to over 500 m altitude. The density of the wood is 895-1125 kg/m³at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

Selected sources

235, 253, 258, 297, 417, 514, 628, 677, 685, 748.