Fraxinus griffithii (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Fraxinus griffithii C.B. Clarke

Family: Oleaceae

Fraxinus eedenii Boerl. & Koord., F. philippensis Merrill, F. formosana Hayata.

• Formosan ash, Griffith's ash, Philippine ash (En)
• Indonesia: bedali-gombong, selaton (Javanese), kayu-candu (Madurese)
• Philippines: asaas, lagili, lagilid (Tagalog).

Himalaya and north-eastern India, China (Hupai), the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines (Luzon), Central Sulawesi, East Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands (Flores and Bali).

Leaves of F. griffithii used to be used as an opium substitute in Pancur (Besuki, East Java) before 1900; the Madurese name means "opium tree". The leaves were dried, crushed and mixed with tobacco to make cigars wrapped in maize bracts ("klobots"). Although smoking these leaves produced the same smell and taste as second grade opium, it did not have the same effect and it did not lessen opium addiction. The wood is used for carving in Luzon, whereas the bark is taken as a laxative in Flores. In Java it can be found as a shade tree in coffee and sometimes as a wayside tree.

Tree, up to 50 m tall, bole up to 90 cm in diameter. Leaves opposite, petiolate, blade imparipinnate, 6-25 cm long, with 2-5(-9) pairs of lanceolate to elliptic-oblong, subcoriaceous, entire leaflets, each 2-14 cm × 1-5 cm. Inflorescence a spreading, many-flowered, terminal and axillary panicle 8-25 cm long; corolla white, divided to the base into 4 narrowly oblong lobes of 2-3 mm × 1 mm, recurved at anthesis; stamens 2; ovary superior, ovoid, 2-locular with 2 ovules in each cell, style 1 mm long, stigma 2-lobed. Fruit a samara with a unilateral wing, linear-oblong with a retuse apex, 19-35 mm × 4-6 mm. Seed 1, ovoid-cylindrical with flat cotyledons and fleshy endosperm. Seedling with epigeal germination. In Taiwan F. griffithii is recorded as being semi-deciduous; its leafing habit is not recorded for the Malesian region. In Java it has two flowering seasons, one from November to February and a shorter one in April, followed by prolific fruiting in February to July and again in September, respectively. F. griffithii penetrates from the subtropics into the tropical zone in areas with a monsoon climate, where it is frequently a pioneer on old lava flows (East Java, the Philippines) or in open rain forest or in Casuarina junghuhniana forest. In the Lesser Sunda Islands it grows almost at sea-level, but in Java it is more common at 1100-1700 m altitude. The bark and leaves of F. griffithii contain tannin, which causes the bitter taste, and a sweet juice composed mainly of mannitol and found also in the European relative F. ornus L. The bark also contains the glucosides ligstrocide, syringin and sinapaldehyde glucoside, but no fraxin or fraxin-like coumarins. The presence of alkaloids has not been demonstrated. The wood is not durable. F. griffithii is presumably grown from seed. Although F. griffithii is a pioneer species, it does not appear to be common or dominant anywhere in South-East Asia. Because it grows in unstable vegetation types in Malesia, it is likely to be at risk from fire or changing land use.

6, 12, 13, 30, 64, 65.

M.S.M. Sosef