Durio grandiflorus (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Durio grandiflorus (Masters) Kosterm. & Soegeng

Protologue: Commun. For. Res. Inst. Bogor 61: 10, fig. 7 (1958).

Family: Bombacaceae

Vernacular names

• Indonesia, Malaysia (Borneo): durian munjit (Malay), durian hantu hutan (Dusun Dajak), sukang (Sungei).
• Brunei: sukang
• Malaysia: durian munyit, durian hantu hutan, sukang (Sarawak, Sabah).

Distribution

Northern Borneo (Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah); occasionally also cultivated for the fruits (e.g. in Brunei).

Uses

The wood is reputed to be used as durian. The aril around the seed is edible.

Observations

• A medium-sized tree up to 30 m tall, with bole up to 50 cm in diameter, buttresses low and rounded, bark surface initially smooth and hoop-marked, becoming longitudinally cracked and flaky, and mauve-brown.
• Leaves oblong to obovate, 9-24 cm × 3.5-8.5 cm, densely pale golden-brown scaly below.
• Flowers solitary or 2 together, almost sessile in axils of fallen leaves or on older branches, petals up to 25 mm long, white, stamens partly in bundles, partly free, opening by a pore.
• Fruit an ellipsoid capsule, up to 20 cm × 15 cm, with stiff pyramidal spines up to 2 cm long.
• Seeds brown, ellipsoidal, 3 cm long, each covered by yellow aril.

D. grandiflorus resembles D. excelsus , but differs in the scaly lower leaf surface, the presence of a calyx tube, the stellately haired petals and the stamens partly arranged in bundles. It is locally common (especially in Sabah) in lowland mixed dipterocarp forest on clay-rich soils, up to 500 m altitude.

Selected sources

• Kostermans, A.J.G.H., 1958. The genus Durio Adans. (Bombacaceae). Reinwardtia 4: 357-460.

26, 77, 99, 312, 576, 673. timbers

Authors

• P.C.M. Jansen, J. Jukema, L.P.A. Oyen, T.G. van Lingen