Palaquium microphyllum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Palaquium microphyllum King & Gamble

Protologue: Journ. As. Soc. Beng. pt. 2, Nat. Hist. 74(2): 196 (1905).

Synonyms

Croixia microphylla (King & Gamble) Baehni (1965).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: nyatoh lakis (Bangka), nyatoh merah (Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: nyatoh pipit (Peninsular).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Lingga, the Riau Archipelago and Borneo.

Uses

The timber is used locally as nyatoh for house building and furniture.

Observations

A fairly large tree up to 35(-45) m tall, with columnar bole up to 85 cm in diameter, with buttresses; leaves more or less clustered at tip of twigs, spatulate, with slender, reticulate tertiary veins often parallel to secondary veins, initially finely hairy beneath but glabrescent; flowers in 1-5-flowered clusters, borne on short (2-5 mm) pedicels; fruit globose to obovoid, 1.2-2.2 cm long, glabrous. P. microphyllum occurs very scattered in lowland and swamp forest, usually below 500 m but occasionally up to 1000 m. It is only very locally common, e.g. in Johor (Peninsular Malaysia). The timber is usually fairly heavy for nyatoh, with a density of 530-920 kg/m³at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

36, 100, 102, 190, 318, 461, 581, 743, 779, 792.