Durio kutejensis (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Durio kutejensis (Hassk.) Becc.

Protologue: Malesia 3: 251, t. 21 (1889).

Family: Bombacaceae

Synonyms

• Lahia kutejensis Hassk. (1858).

Vernacular names

• Brunei: durian kuning
• Indonesia: lai, ruas, sekawi (Dayak, Kalimantan), durian tinggang (Malay, Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: durian merah (Sabah), rian isu (Iban, Sarawak).

Distribution

Borneo (Kalimantan, Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah); often cultivated elsewhere in Malesia (e.g. Java) for the fruits or as an ornamental tree.

Uses

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

Observations

• A small to medium-sized tree up to 30 m tall, with bole branchless up to 12 m and up to 40 cm in diameter having low, rounded buttresses, bark surface initially smooth and hoop-marked, later rather rough and flaky, grey to reddish-brown.
• Leaves elliptical-oblong, (10-)20-33 cm × (3-)6-12 cm, densely pale golden-brown scaly below.
• Flowers in irregular racemes on older branches, petals up to 90 mm long, red, stamens free, opening by a slit.
• Fruit an ovoid to ellipsoid, pentangular capsule, up to 20 cm × 12 cm, dirty yellow, covered with slightly curved pyramidal soft spines 1-1.5 cm long.
• Seeds ellipsoid, up to 4 cm long, glossy brown, completely enclosed by a fleshy, yellow, sweet-smelling aril.

Cultivated trees start fruiting when 4-5 m tall. The aril comes nearest to the one of the real durian. The original habitat of the wild plants is the foothills of Borneo's central ranges; in Sarawak, it occurs locally on fertile clay-rich soils on undulating land in mixed dipterocarp forest. The heartwood is reddish-brown.

Selected sources

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

• Tankard, G., 1987. Exotic tree fruit for the Australian home garden. Recent rare fruit discoveries in Malaysian Borneo. Thomas Nelson Australia, Melbourne, Victoria. pp. 117-125.

26, 36, 77, 99, 234, 312, 673. timbers

Authors

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