Artocarpus tamaran (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Artocarpus tamaran Becc.

Protologue: Nell. For. Borneo: 626 (1902).

Family: Moraceae

Vernacular names

• Malaysia: timbangan (Sabah), tarap tempunan, tamaran, tembaran (Sarawak).

Distribution

Endemic in Borneo.

Uses

The bast is made into very good barkcloth. The timber is used and traded as terap.

Observations

• A dioecious, evergreen tree up to 40 m tall, bole up to 100 cm in diameter, bark grey-brown, exuding white latex when wounded, buttresses up to 3 m tall.
• Leaves spirally arranged, simple, but leaves of juvenile trees deeply pinnately lobed and up to 1 m long; stipules amplexicaul, lanceolate, 3-18 cm long; blade ovate to elliptical, 20-35 cm × 11-17 cm, margins lobed, glabrous above, the main veins appressed sericeous below, with (15-)17-23 pairs of secondary veins.
• Inflorescence capitate, solitary, axillary; numerous flowers densely packed together, embedded in the receptacle, the perianth enclosing a single stamen or ovary, mixed with abundant stalked interfloral bracts; male head cylindrical, 7 cm × 1-1.5 cm on a 3-5 cm long peduncle; styles in female head simple and exserted.
• Fruit a cylindrical syncarp, up to 10 cm × 5 cm, on a 5-10 cm long peduncle, brown, covered by processes ("spines") of 2 lengths, the longer flexuous, filiform, solid, up to 1 cm long, the shorter conical, perforate, up to 3 mm long, both rough from short recurved hairs.
• Seed (pericarp) ellipsoidal, 6 mm × 4 mm.

A. tamaran is fairly common and found in mixed dipterocarp forest in lowland and hills, up to 600 m altitude. The density of the wood is 455-465 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

77, 262. timbers

20, 86, 99, 135, 139, 161. fibres

Main genus page

• Artocarpus (PROSEA Timbers)

Authors

M.S.M. Sosef (selection of species) (Timbers)

M. Brink, P.C.M. Jansen & C.H. Bosch (Fibres)