Cordia aspera (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Cordia aspera G. Forster

Family: Boraginaceae

Cordia cumingiana Vidal.

• Philippines: anonang-lalaki (Tagalog), maratarong (Ilokano).

The Philippines, Borneo, Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Taiwan, Australia, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia and the Samoa Islands.

In the Philippines bast strips are made into low-quality rope.

A small tree or scrambling shrub, up to 7 m tall. Leaves simple, alternate; petiole 0.7-8 cm long; blade ovate, (2.5-)5-22 cm × 1.5-16 cm, base truncate or rounded, margin finely serrate, apex acuminate, rarely subobtuse, veins (3-)4-6. Inflorescence subcorymbose, lateral, subterminal or in fork of uppermost branches; peduncle up to 3.5 cm long; flowers numerous; pedicel less than 1 mm long; calyx with 10 distinct longitudinal ribs, 5-lobed, 3-3.5(-4) mm long, reddish tomentose; corolla 3 mm long, tube cylindrical, lobes revolute. Fruit drupaceous, ovoid, (5-)8 mm × (4-)5 mm, acute. In the Philippines C. aspera is found in thickets and secondary forest at low and medium altitudes. In Philippine studies in the 1910s, dry and wet rope made from the bast of C. aspera had a tensile strength of 388 kg per cm² and 364 kg per cm², respectively. The elongation at break of dry or wet rope was 16%.

19, 47, 93, 102, 103.

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