Horsfieldia iryaghedhi (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Horsfieldia iryaghedhi (Gaertn.) Warb.

Family: Myristicaceae

Synonyms

Horsfieldia odorata Willd., Myristica horsfieldii Blume, M. iryaghedhi Gaertn.

Vernacular names

• Ceylon champaca (En)
• Indonesia: campaka selong (Sundanese)
• Malaysia: chempaca selong, pendarahan, penarah.

Distribution

Originating from Sri Lanka, introduced and cultivated elsewhere, including South-East Asia (for example in Malaysia, Singapore and Java).

Uses

The seed yields a red-brown fat which is used to make candles. The wood is a source of timber (trade name "penarahan" for most timbers of Myristicaceae ) and firewood. The tree is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental for its fragrant flowers which have an odour resembling that of Michelia champaca L.

Observations

A tree, 5-25 m tall, up to 50 cm in diameter, in humid soils sometimes with stilt roots. Leaves alternate in two vertical rows, chartaceous; petiole 1-3 cm long; blade ovate-elliptical to oblong-lanceolate, 10-28 cm × 4-12 cm, base rounded to attenuate, apex acute-acuminate, veins 9-16 pairs, underside papillose. Inflorescence axillary, paniculate, unisexual; male ones 6-15 cm long, usually twice branched, the branches few, peduncle up to 2 cm long supporting subglobose dense clusters 5-10 mm in diameter spaced along the branches, each cluster with 80-100 subsessile very fragrant flowers; female ones smaller, little branched, up to 4 cm long, the flowers solitary or few together; male flowers with pedicel 0.3 mm long, perianth 3-4-lobed, 3 mm long, androecium elongate, narrowly obconical or ellipsoid-oblong, 1 mm long, thecae 6-10, largely sessile, erect, free apices 0.2 mm long, column narrow, hollow to halfway; female flowers on short pedicel, perianth 2-3-lobed, 3 mm long, ovary broadly ellipsoid, 2 mm long, stigma minutely 2-4-lobed. Infructescence a cluster of 3-8 fruits; fruit a 1-seeded follicle, ellipsoid, 2-4 cm × 2 cm, yellow-brown, with dense, brown-yellow, stellate hairs, pericarp 1.5-3 mm thick, not tuberculate. H. iryaghedhi occurs in lowland rain forest, wet evergreen forest and in disturbed forest, from sea-level up to 500 m altitude. It flowers and fruits throughout the year. The fat from the seed has a melting point of 41.5°C.

Selected sources

8, 19, 30, 42, 49, 52, 56, 59.