Callerya (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Callerya Endl.

Protologue: Gen. pl., Suppl. 3: 104 (1843).

Family: Leguminosae

Chromosome number: x= 8;C. cinerea(Benth.) Schot:n= 8,C. dasyphylla(Miq.) Schot: 2n= 16,C. reticulata(Benth.) Schot: 2n= 32

Origin and geographic distribution

Callerya comprises 19 species which occur from the Himalayas to China, Taiwan, Indo-China, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, West Java, Borneo, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Australia (Queensland, New South Wales); 9 species are present within Malesia.

Uses

The wood of Callerya is used for medium-heavy construction (beams, rafters) and because of its fine colour also for decorative furniture, parquet flooring, partitioning, interior finish, turnery and fancy boxes. It is rarely used for fuel.

C. atropurpurea has attractive pink to deep purple flowers and is planted as an ornamental and shade tree along roadsides. Its leaves are eaten as a vegetable. The seeds have been applied in traditional medicine in Sumatra against swellings, and can be used to stupefy fish. The seeds of C. vasta yield an edible oil.

Production and international trade

Wood of C. atropurpurea has formerly been exported from Burma (Myanmar). At present it is used on a local scale only.

Properties

Callerya yields a medium-weight hardwood with a density of 600-815 kg/m³at 15% moisture content. Heartwood pale orange-brown with paler streaks when fresh, not clearly differentiated from the sapwood, but wood rapidly infected by sap-stain causing a dirty grey-brown to almost black colour; grain interlocked; texture rather coarse and uneven; zig-zag marking on tangential surfaces due to wood parenchyma. Growth rings sometimes visible, boundary indicated by a more or less continuous band of parenchyma; vessels moderately large, solitary and in radial multiples of 2-4, open; parenchyma abundant, paratracheal aliform and confluent, and sometimes appearing in marginal bands due to anastomosing confluent parenchyma, conspicuous to the naked eye on all surfaces; rays very fine to moderately fine; ripple marks fine, usually present but difficult to see.

Shrinkage upon seasoning is low and in Malaysia kiln schedule G is recommended. The wood is moderately hard to hard, fairly strong and reported to be slightly difficult to work. It is non-durable and susceptible to sap-stain. The sapwood is susceptible to Lyctus . Both heartwood and sapwood are easily treated with preservatives.

Mature leaves of C. atropurpurea contain 12% protein.

See also the table on microscopic wood anatomy.

Botany

Evergreen, usually lianas or scandent shrubs, occasionally trees up to 35 m tall; bole straight to poorly shaped, branchless for up to 13 m, up to 60 cm in diameter, with steep buttresses up to 3 m high; bark surface smooth to fissured or flaking, brown to pale greyish or yellowish-brown, inner bark laminated or mottled, fawn, ochre spotted, exuding a sticky, red resin; crown dense, broad. Leaves arranged spirally, imparipinnate; leaflets opposite, entire; stipules narrow, caducous, stipellae narrow, caducous or persistent. Flowers papilionaceous, in axillary or terminal racemes often forming leafy panicles, with linear to ovate bracts and bracteoles; calyx variably oblique, the long lower tooth enclosing the corolla in bud; stamens 10, diadelphous, 9 united in a sheath, 1 free; disk usually distinct; ovary superior, 1-locular with 2-14 ovules. Fruit a woody, tardily dehiscing pod with 1-5 seeds. Seed lens-shaped, orbicular to ellipsoid. Seedling with hypogeal or semi-hypogeal germination; cotyledons not emergent, fleshy; hypocotyl not elongated; all leaves arranged spirally, first few ones scale-like, subsequent ones imparipinnate.

Trees flower after a period of dry weather. C. atropurpurea has been observed flowering in February-August and fruiting in May-October, but does not flower and bear fruit annually. C. vasta flowers from May-November and fruits from August-February. Flowers of C. atropurpurea are pollinated by carpenter bees of the genus Xylocopa .

Callerya belongs to the tribe Millettieae , the generic limits of which are currently being revised. To date, Callerya comprises species formerly accommodated in Adinobotrys , Millettia , Padbruggea and Whitfordiodendron .

Ecology

C. atropurpurea is found in primary or secondary, evergreen forest, up to 1200 m altitude. It prefers well-drained locations and occurs on clay or limestone. C. vasta is found in swampy sites, on periodically inundated alluvial soils, and on dry slopes, on brown-yellow sandy clay, up to 250 m altitude.

Silviculture Callerya can be propagated by seed. About 85% of C. atropurpurea seeds germinate in 2-11 months.

Genetic resources and breeding

C. atropurpurea and C. vasta are fairly common and do not seem to be threatened.

Prospects

It is unlikely that the non-durable Callerya timber will gain importance in the near future.

Literature

56, 163, 209, 218, 238, 267, 368, 436, 553, 740, 741, 770, 829, 831, 861, 884, 995, 1038, 1184, 1221.