Hopea latifolia (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: Gard. Bull. Str. Settl. 10: 360 (1939).

Vernacular names

Brunei: merawan daun bulat
Indonesia: rasak tunjang (Sumatra)
Malaysia: merawan daun bulat, merawan jangkang, chengal mata kucing (Peninsular)
Thailand: khian-rak (peninsular).

Peninsular Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and north-western Borneo (Brunei, Sarawak).

The timber is used as merawan.

A medium-sized tree, bole straight, up to 70 cm in diameter, with small thin buttresses and stilt roots, exuding a white dammar, bark surface smooth, hoop-marked, pale grey-brown, inner bark pale brown to cream at the cambium, sapwood yellow, hard, heartwood dark brown; young twigs and buds waxy glaucescent.
Leaves ovate, 5-8 cm × 2-4.5 cm, thin leathery, base cuneate, frequently subequal, acumen slender, up to 1.5 cm long, margin not revolute, venation dryobalanoid, midrib slightly raised above, secondary veins about 8 pairs, indistinct.
Stamens 15, in 3 whorls, ovary ovoid, glabrous, stylopodium indistinct, style as long as the ovary, filiform, villous towards the base.
2 longer fruit calyx lobes up to 6 cm × 1.4 cm, narrowly obtuse, tapering to base, 3 shorter ones up to 9 mm × 7 mm, ovate, acute, saccate, thickened, frequently hiding the nut.

H. latifolia is locally frequent in mixed dipterocarp forest on low-lying land. The density of the wood is 625-930 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content.

30, 258, 514, 601, 628, 677, 748.