Colona auriculata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Colona auriculata (Desf.) Craib

Family: Tiliaceae

Synonyms

• Columbia auriculata (Desf.) Baill.,
• Diplophractum auriculatum Desf.

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: nilau kucing (Palembang), dhalubang tali (Madurese), dalupang (Kangean)
• Cambodia: préal, prial venh ksè
• Thailand: po phran (eastern, north-eastern), po thi (eastern), khi ma haeng (northern).

Distribution

Indonesia (Madura and Kangean Archipelago), Thailand and Indo-China.

Uses

The bast is made into good-quality rope. Timber is used for cabinet work in Thailand.

Observations

• A multi-stemmed shrub, up to 4 m tall. Stems drooping to all sides, long, rather thin, with a very tough bark.
• Leaves distichous; petiole 2-8 mm long, hairy; blade oblong to obovate-oblong, 4-28 cm × 1-7 cm, base unequal-sided cordate and broadly auriculate, margin doubly serrate, acute to caudate at the apex, densely villose at lower surface, 3-veined at base, secondary veins 3-7 pairs, scalariform and reticulate veins distinct and depressed on upper surface.
• Inflorescence axillary, in 1-3-flowered cymes, 2-3 cm long, sometimes collected into a racemiform terminal panicle, densely soft-hairy; pedicel 1-1.5 cm long.
• Flowers bisexual; sepals 5, free, oblong-lanceolate, 8-10 mm long; petals 5, free, oblanceolate to spatulate, 5 mm × 1.5 mm, whitish, bearing a gland at base inside; receptacle columnar; stamens on apex of receptacle, numerous, free, glabrous; ovary ovoid, 3 mm × 2 mm, 5-celled, hairy; style filiform, stigma small, 5-dentate.
• Fruit subglobose, 1.5-2.5 cm in diameter, with 5 small, longitudinal, undulate wings or ridges, brown hairy, dry, hard, indehiscent, divided into many 1-seeded persistently connate mericarps.

In Indonesia C. auriculata often grows gregariously, locally abundant, up to 300 m altitude on periodically strongly desiccating soils in alang-alang bush, brushwood and edges of or clearings in teak forest. In Thailand it occurs in swampy locations in old clearings and deciduous forest up to 200 m altitude. Flowering is from February to June in Indonesia, and from June to August in Indo-China. In Thailand flowering is from May to September and fruiting from May to December.

Selected sources

6, 49, 59, 71, 160.

Authors

M. Brink, P.C.M. Jansen & C.H. Bosch