Heritiera sumatrana (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Heritiera sumatrana (Miq.) Kosterm.

Protologue: Penerb. Madj. Ilmu Peng. Indon. 1: 61 (1959). Also in: Reinwardtia 4: 524 (1959).

• Tarrietia sumatrana Miq. (1860),
• Tarrietia curtisii King (1891),
• Tarrietia perakensis King (1891).

• Malaysia: mengkulang jari bulu
• Thailand: chum-phraek khaao (Trat), seesiat cho (Surat Thani), siat khang (Yala).

Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo.

The timber is used as mengkulang.

• A medium-sized to large tree, sometimes up to 45 m tall but usually up to 30 m tall, bole up to 70(-100) cm in diameter, with large, thin buttresses.
• Leaves palmately compound with 3-7 leaflets, sparsely hairy beneath, petioles 2-7(-11) cm long.
• Panicles with slender ramifications, up to 15 cm long.
• Fruit dorsally and ventrally flattened, nut ovoid-ellipsoid, wing large, glabrous.

H. sumatrana resembles H. javanica but lacks the characteristic tufts of hairs in the axils of the veins of the latter species, and can be distinguished also by the blunter terminal buds, and by the much larger nut. This species is widely distributed, especially in Peninsular Malaysia. In most of the area of distribution it occurs scattered in mixed dipterocarp forest on undulating land up to 800 m altitude.

33, 100, 146, 378, 779.

• Heritiera

• R.H.M.J. Lemmens (selection of species)