Hopea altocollina (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Hopea altocollina P. Ashton

Protologue: Gard. Bull. Sing. 22: 271, pl. 16 (1967).

Vernacular names

• Brunei: luis gunong.

Distribution

North-western Borneo.

Uses

The wood is used as merawan and is suitable for door and window frames, particle board and, when treated, railway sleepers.

Observations

• A large tree of up to 50 m tall, bole straight, cylindrical, with a diameter up to 165 cm, buttresses prominent, branching, thin, up to 4 m tall, bark surface pale fawn-brown, shallowly longitudinally irregularly flaking, inner bark pale yellow-brown, sapwood cream, turning to a pale coffee-brown heartwood; plant glabrous, except sepals and petals sericeous outside.
• Leaves lanceolate, 7-10 cm × 3-4.5 cm, base obtuse, appearing cuneate owing to the prominently revolute margin, acumen slender, up to 1 cm long, venation dryobalanoid, midrib slightly elevated above, secondary veins about 16 pairs, more or less indistinct.
• Stamens 15, ovary and stylopodium cylindrical, style short
• 2 longer fruit calyx lobes up to 4.5 cm × 0.8 cm, 3 shorter ones up to 4 mm × 4 mm, suborbicular, obtuse, shorter than the nut.

H. altocollina is locally frequent on clay-rich soils, hillsides and spurs at 800-1000 m altitude. The density of the wood is 735-835 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

31, 258, 359, 748.

Main genus page

• Hopea (merawan)

Authors

• K.M. Kochummen (selection of species),
• F.T. Frietema (selection of species)