Copaifera (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Copaifera L.

Protologue: Sp. pl., ed. 2: 557 (1762).

Family: Leguminosae

Chromosome number: For several species from tropical America and Africa: 2n= 24;C. palustris: 2n= unknown

Trade groups

Swamp sepetir: medium-weight hardwood, a single species in South-East Asia, Copaifera palustris (Sym.) de Wit, Webbia 9: 462 (1954), synonym: Pseudosindora palustris Sym. (1944).

The timber is often traded as sepetir, together with the timber of Sindora .

Vernacular names

• Swamp sepetir. Brunei: sepetir paya, sepetir, petir
• Malaysia: sepetir paya, petir umbut, tepih (Sarawak).

Origin and geographic distribution

The genus Copaifera consists of 25-30 species. Most species occur in tropical America, 4 species in tropical Africa, and 1 species in Borneo (Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah and north-western Kalimantan).

Uses

The uses of swamp sepetir are quite similar to sepetir. It is used for the manufacture offurniture, cabinet-making, ornamental work, handles, general construction such as planking, ceiling, flooring, doors and windows, shingles, packing cases and crates and for plywood manufacture. It is also of local importance for boat building and is used for masts.

Production and international trade

Copaifera timber is generally marketed as sepetir together with the timber of Sindora species. No specific data on trade are available, but swamp sepetir has some importance in Sarawak as it is more common than Sindora and produces the bulk of the timber traded as sepetir there; it is mainly exported to Japan.

Properties

Swamp sepetir is a medium-weight hardwood. The heartwood is pale pink with pale brown veining when freshly cut, darkening to a rich reddish-brown on exposure; it is usually distinctly demarcated from the pale greyish-brown or beige (sometimes with a pink tinge) sapwood, which is often comparatively wide, up to 12.5 cm. The wood often shows dark brown to black streaks on longitudinal surfaces, producing handsomely figured wood. The density is 530-865 kg/m³at 15% moisture content. The grain is straight to shallowly interlocked, texture moderately fine and even. The wood is not lustrous and is oily to the touch.

At 12% moisture content, the modulus of rupture is 125 N/mm², modulus of elasticity 12 700 N/mm², compression parallel to grain 64 N/mm², shear 16 N/mm², cleavage 24.5 N/mm radial and 42 N/mm tangential, and Janka side hardness 6275 N. See also the table on wood properties.

The rates of shrinkage are moderately low: from green to 12% moisture content 2.0% radial and 3.0% tangential. The timber dries well but moderately slowly; it has a tendency to end-splitting but distortion is small. It can be kiln dried rapidly, but a mild kiln schedule is required. In Malaysia, kiln schedule G is recommended. Pre-drying before kilning is advised to reduce warping. The form stability is good when dry; movement is small.

In general, swamp sepetir may be difficult to work. However, conversion in a modern mill presents little difficulty. Although the wood does not contain silica, the heartwood has a moderate blunting effect on tools. Although resin builds up on the blades, the heartwood can usually be worked to a smooth finish, providing the tools are kept sharp. Air-dried wood is rated as difficult to saw and cross-cut and requires careful support where breaking through on end-grain may occur. It planes and bores easily, producing smooth surfaces; it turns easily but with a slightly rough surface. Finishing is satisfactory, but filling is required. The wood can be polished satisfactorily, since the amount of resin is apparently insufficient to interfere seriously with this operation. It is only moderately suitable for bending purposes; it is liable to buckle during bending and the bending properties are improved by using a supporting strap. The resistance to splitting upon nailing and screwing is generally satisfactory, but sometimes there is a tendency to split unless pre-bored. The gluing properties are very good. The timber is moderately easy to cut into a smooth and tight veneer of uniform thickness; the recommended temperature during rotary cutting is 95C. The veneer can be dried flat and split-free, and it is suitable for construction plywood and for inner layers of plywood since it is generally not decorative.

Swamp sepetir is rated as non-durable to moderately durable. Stake tests showed an average service life in contact with the ground of 2.6 years under tropical conditions. The heartwood is rated as durable under temperate conditions. The wood is susceptible to powder-post beetle, termite and fungal attack. Attack by pinhole borers is rare, but the wood is not resistant to marine borers. The heartwood is difficult to treat with preservatives. Using a standard open tank treatment, the average absorption of a mixture of creosote and diesel fuel is 96 kg/m³, but the wood may be preserved very well when treated with 100% creosote, the absorption being 140 kg/m³. Under the full-cell process, swamp sepetir heartwood absorbs only about 75 kg/m³using a 3% copper-chrome-arsenic solution, whereas the average dry salt retention is only 2.2 kg/m³.

Description

A medium-sized to sometimes fairly large tree, up to 30(-39) m tall, with straight and cylindrical bole up to 60(-180) cm in diameter; buttresses absent; bark surface finely and shallowly longitudinally fissured, with weakly raised transverse rings, greyish to red-brown. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate, (2-)4(-6)-foliolate, petiole and rachis 4.5-12 cm long; stipules auriculate to subfalcate, caducous; leaflets alternate, elliptical-oblong, often unequally sided, 5-9(-14) cm × 3.5-6(-8) cm, leathery, with rounded base and acute or short-acuminate apex, glossy and with pellucid dots, glabrous, with numerous, fairly distinct secondary veins and often 1-3 glands at the base of the blade, petiolule 4-7 mm long. Inflorescence axillary, paniculate, 4-11 cm long, pubescent. Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic, pedicelled, pearl-fawn coloured; calyx lobes 4, narrowly imbricate or subvalvate in bud, elliptical, 4-7.5 mm × 2-4 mm, puberulous outside, densely tomentose inside; petals and disk absent; stamens 10, free, alternately long and short, filaments 7-10 mm long, with dorsifixed, c. 2 mm long anthers; ovary superior, stipitate, pilose along the ventral suture and on the stipe, 2ovuled, style 4.5-5 mm long, with small capitellate stigma. Fruit an ellipsoid pod, 4.5-7.5 cm × 3.5-4 cm, rather smooth, 2valved, valves thick coriaceous, 1-2seeded. Seeds oblong, c. 2.5 cm × 1.5 cm, lacking albumen, glossy brown or black, enclosed by narrowly 2-lobed pinkish arils. Seedling with epigeal germination; cotyledons plano-convex; first 2 leaves opposite.

Wood anatomy

• Macroscopic characters:

Heartwood dark reddish-brown and clearly demarcated from the sapwood which is often wide and pale grey-brown or beige in colour, sometimes with a pink tinge. Grain straight to shallowly interlocked. Texture moderately fine and even; prominent dark-coloured streaks are usually present on longitudinal surfaces. Growth rings distinct, marked by terminal parenchyma; vessels medium-sized and visible to the naked eye, vessel lines conspicuous on longitudinal surfaces, deposits common, tyloses sparse to absent; parenchyma visible as narrow terminal layers; rays moderately fine, visible to the naked eye; ripple marks absent.

• Microscopic characters:

Growth rings distinct, marked by irregularly spaced terminal parenchyma. Vessels diffuse, 2-4(-5)/mm², solitary and in radial groups of 2-4 and with some irregular clusters, oval to almost round, average tangential diameter (50-)100-200μm; perforation plates simple; intervessel pits alternate, vestured, 6-10μm in diameter; vessel-ray and vessel-parenchyma pits similar but half-bordered, 5-8μm in diameter; deposits common; tyloses rare or absent. Fibres 0.7-1.4 mm long, non-septate, thin-walled, with small simple pits mainly confined to the radial walls. Parenchyma paratracheal and apotracheal; paratracheal parenchyma vasicentric, forming sheaths of several cells wide around the vessels, with a tendency to aliform; apotracheal parenchyma diffuse and in terminal bands; in strands of 2(-4) cells. Rays (4-)5-10(-12)/mm, mostly multiseriate and (1-)2-3 cells wide, less than 2 mm high, heterocellular with 1-5 rows of square to upright marginal cells (Kribs type heterogeneous II to III) but sometimes vaguely homocellular. Prismatic crystals in chains in chambered cells, 3-14 crystals per chain. Silica bodies absent.

Swamp sepetir wood is very similar to sepetir ( Sindora spp.) but differs in the absence of axial resin canals.

Growth and development

When still young, swamp sepetir is fairly tolerant of shade.

Other botanical information

The species has originally been described as Pseudosindora palustris Sym. Later, after comparison with American and African species, it was reduced to Copaifera. In some characters C. palustris agrees with American Copaifera species (e.g. dehiscence of fruits), in others it agrees with African species (e.g. seedling characters).

Copaifera is allied to Sindora and Crudia but differs from the former in the alternate leaflets and lacking petals, and from the latter by the paniculate inflorescence, the absence of a hypanthium and by having distinctly arillate seeds.

Ecology

Swamp sepetir grows scattered in coastal freshwater peat-swamp forest, also called mixed swamp forest. It is especially found on the periphery of the swamp together with Gonystylus bancanus (Miq.) Kurz (ramin), Dryobalanops rappa Becc. (swamp kapur) and the red merantis Shorea albida Sym. (alan), Shorea platycarpa Heim (meranti paya), Shorea scabrida Sym. (meranti lop) and Shorea uliginosa Foxw. (meranti buaya). It is sometimes also found in drier lowland forest and occurs up to 30 m altitude.

Propagation and planting

In forest, natural regeneration is often fairly abundant. Swamp sepetir is considered to be fairly tolerant of shade, at least when still young. Experience with non-Malesian species of Copaifera suggests that propagation by seed will be successful.

Silviculture and management

In mixed swamp forest in Sarawak an average of up to 3.5 large trees/ha can be found and locally 10% of the large trees are swamp sepetir. The mixed swamp forest is managed under a uniform silvicultural system with a single clear-felling planned at 45 years. Ten years after exploitation naturally regenerated trees should be selected. Young trees of swamp sepetir should remain under light shade, whereas most other species in the mixed swamp forest should be given full overhead light.

Harvesting

The minimum diameter for felling swamp sepetir is 45 cm in Sarawak. The desired trees are selectively felled after which the undesired remaining trees over 13 cm diameter are poison-girdled and smaller trees are removed to favour the dominant trees of the desired species, including swamp sepetir, of 8 cm diameter and up.

Yield

A tree with a diameter of 50 cm contains about 1.5 m³of timber, and a tree of 70 cm in diameter about 4.2 m³.

Genetic resources

The area of distribution of swamp sepetir is rather limited and it is only locally common in Sarawak. Large-scale clear-cutting or heavy logging in this region may easily endanger swamp sepetir as it does not regenerate as well in severely disturbed swamp forest as, for instance, the red merantis.

Prospects

Swamp sepetir might be a promising timber for swamp forest managed under a selective logging system. However, very little information is available, even on the most basic aspects such as growth and development and propagation of swamp sepetir.

Literature

• All Nippon Checkers Corporation, 1989. Illustrated commercial foreign woods in Japan. Tokyo. p. 84.
• Anderson, J.A.R., 1963. The flora of the peat swamp forests of Sarawak and Brunei including a catalogue of all recorded species of flowering plants, ferns and fern allies. Gardens' Bulletin Singapore 20: 131-228.
• Browne, F.G., 1955. Forest trees of Sarawak andBrunei. Government Printing Office, Kuching, Sarawak. pp. 242-243.
• Burgess, P.F., 1966. Timbers of Sabah. Sabah Forest Records No 6. Forest Department, Sabah. pp. 375-382.
• Clarke, E.C., 1964. A report on silvicultural research and the silvicultural treatment of exploited mixed swamp forest in the peat swamp forests of Sarawak, 1960-1963. Research pamphlet No 45. Forest Research Institute Malaya, Kepong. 40 pp.
• Ho, K.S., 1982. Malaysian timbers - sepetir. Malaysian Forest Service Trade Leaflet No 60. Malaysian Timber Industry Board, Kuala Lumpur. 9 pp.
• Hou, D., 1994. Studies in Malesian Caesalpinioideae (Leguminosae). I. The genera Acrocarpus, Afzelia, Copaifera, and Intsia. Blumea 38: 313-330.
• Lee, H.S., 1979. Natural regeneration and reforestation in the peat swamp forest of Sarawak. Tropical Agriculture Research Series 12: 51-60.
• Symington, C.F., 1944. Pseudosindora palustris (Leguminosae, Amherstieae), a new genus and species from Borneo. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Session 155: 285-288.
• Whitmore, T.C., 1984. Tropical rainforest of the Far East. Second Edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford. pp. 190-191.

Other selected sources 139, 228, 588, 595.

D. Hou (general part),

P.B. Laming (properties),

S.C. Lim (wood anatomy)