Dipterocarpus caudatus (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Dipterocarpus caudatus Foxw.

Protologue: Philipp. Journ. Sc., Bot. 13: 177 (1918).

Vernacular names

• Brunei: keruing gasing
• Malaysia: keruing gasing (Peninsular, Sarawak), keruing deran, songgi kuning (Peninsular)
• Philippines: tailed leaf apitong (general), apitong (Bikol).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo (Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah) and the Philippines.

Uses

The wood is used as keruing; because of its comparative strength it is especially suitable for heavy construction work. The wood freely produces a wood-oil which has been commercially tapped.

Observations

• A large tree of up to 50 m tall, bole tall, straight, up to 125 cm in diameter, with low, rounded buttresses, bark surface greyish-brown, with small orange lenticels, flaky, inner bark pale yellow-brown, hard; buds narrowly falcate or linear, densely pale buff pubescent.
• Leaves broadly elliptical (subsp. caudatus ) or narrowly elliptical (subsp. penangianus), 7-11 cm × 3.5-5 cm, base cuneate, acumen up to 1.2 cm long, secondary veins 9-12 pairs, glabrous (subsp. caudatus) or sparsely pubescent (subsp. penangianus), petiole 1-1.5 cm (subsp. caudatus) or 1.5-2.5 cm long (subsp. penangianus), stipules linear, obtuse, shortly pubescent outside; stamens about 30.
• Fruit calyx tube spherical to obovoid, minutely lenticillate, glabrous, 2 larger fruit calyx lobes up to 14 cm × 3 cm, 3 shorter ones 4-8 mm × 3-4 mm, recurved.

D. caudatus is divided into two subspecies. Subsp. caudatus occurs in the Philippines, subsp. penangianus (Foxw.) P. Ashton (synonym: D. penangianus Foxw.) occurs in the other areas mentioned. D. caudatus occurs locally on well-drained flat or undulating land in the humid zone up to 600 m altitude. The density of the wood is 755-970 kg/m³at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

Selected sources

30, 175, 253, 258, 497, 514, 579, 677, 737, 748.

Main genus page

• Dipterocarpus (Timbers)

Authors

• T. Smitinand (selection of species),
• C. Phengklai (selection of species),
• L.E. Groen (selection of species)