Hopea philippinensis (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Hopea philippinensis Dyer

Protologue: Journ. Bot. 16: 100 (1878).

Vernacular names

• Philippines: gisok-gisok (general), makatayring (Tagalog), baguatsa (Bikol).

Distribution

The Philippines.

Uses

The wood is a heavy-grade merawan, but owing to the small size of the bole used only locally for house posts and temporary railway ties.

Observations

• A small to medium-sized tree of up to 30 m tall, bole with diameter to 40 cm, frequently crooked and branching low, with a few stilt roots, dammar exudations cream-brown, bark surface smooth, red-brown to fawn mottled, inner bark hard, pale brown, sapwood pale yellow, grading to pale brown heartwood; young parts densely pale tawny pubescent.
• Leaves narrowly elliptical-oblong to lanceolate, (7-)12-25 cm × (2.5-)4-7 cm, thin leathery, base unequal, acumen slender, up to 2 cm long, venation scalariform, midrib raised above, secondary veins 17-22 pairs, slender but prominent beneath, obscurely depressed above, arched at 50-60°.
• Stamens 15, ovary and stylopodium hour-glass-shaped, the ovary slightly broader, style short but distinct.
• 2 longer fruit calyx lobes up to 12 cm × 3 cm, 3 shorter ones up to 7 mm × 8 mm, broadly ovate, mucronate, shorter than nut.

H. philippinensis is a widespread and common species of evergreen non-seasonal forest on hills up to 500 m altitude. The density of the wood is 705-950 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

175, 258, 579, 593, 748.

Main genus page

• Hopea (merawan)

Authors

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