Hopea gregaria (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Hopea gregaria v. Slooten

Protologue: Reinwardtia 2: 21, f. 7 (1952).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: pooti (Sulawesi), mandonor (Biak), kamura (Aru).

Distribution

South-eastern Sulawesi, possibly also on the Aru Islands and on Japen Island.

Uses

The timber is used as giam (sometimes traded as balau). Small quantities of a clear, white or yellow resin are produced by the tree and used locally.

Observations

• A medium-sized to fairly large tree of up to 35 m tall, bole straight and with small buttresses; young parts buff caducous puberulent, more or less persistently on panicles, calyx and parts of petals exposed in bud.
• Leaves lanceolate-falcate to ovate, 6-13 cm × 2.5-6.5 cm, thin leathery, with dull, minutely stellate undersurface, base cuneate, unequal, acumen slender, tapering, up to 1.5 cm long, venation scalariform, midrib slightly raised above, secondary veins 7-10 pairs, slender but distinctly elevated beneath.
• Stamens 15, in 3 subequal verticils, ovary and stylopodium broadly pear-shaped, somewhat abruptly tapering to the short columnar style.
• Fruit calyx lobes unequal but the 2 longer ones only slightly longer than the nut and becoming reflexed.

H. gregaria occurs often gregariously in primary forest on well-drained, hilly or steep places on stony or clayey soil at low altitudes. The density of the wood is 990-1110 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

258, 461, 555, 744, 748.

Main genus page

• Hopea (giam)

Authors

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