Palaquium hexandrum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Palaquium hexandrum (Griffith) Baillon

Protologue: Traité bot. méd. phan., Add.: 1500 (1884).

Synonyms

• Croixia hexandra (Griffith) Baehni (1965).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: balam nasih, balam pinang, balam putih (Sumatra)
• Malaysia: nyatoh jambak (Peninsular).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra and Borneo.

Uses

The timber is used as nyatoh. The latex is sometimes used to adulterate gutta-percha. The fruit is edible but sour. The seed yields a fat that may be used for cooking or as illuminant.

Observations

• A large tree up to 50 m tall, with columnar bole up to 80 cm in diameter and plank buttresses.
• Leaves loosely clustered at tip of twigs, obovate (particularly in old trees), ovate, elliptical or narrowly elliptical (particularly in young trees), with slender transverse tertiary veins, initially puberulous but soon glabrous beneath.
• Flowers in up to 20-flowered clusters, borne on 4-13 mm long pedicels (up to 22 mm in fruit), greenish-yellow.
• Fruit globose, ovoid or ellipsoid, 2-3 cm long, glabrous.

P. hexandrum occurs scattered in lowland primary forest and seasonal swamps, rarely up to 1300 m (Peninsular Malaysia). In some places it is very common (e.g. in Perak). The timber has a density of 450-770 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content and is not durable when exposed to the weather or in contact with the ground; it is reddish-brown. The latex is abundant but glutinous.

Selected sources

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

Main genus page

• Palaquium (Timbers)

Authors

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