Parinari anamensis (PROSEA)
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Introduction |
Parinari anamensis Hance
- Family: Chrysobalanaceae
Synonyms
Parinarium albidum Craib, P. sumatranum Kurz.
Vernacular names
- Cambodia: thlok
- Laos: phok
- Thailand: ma-khlok (northern), pradong-luat (south-western), kathon lok (south-eastern)
- Vietnam: cây cám.
Distribution
Thailand, Indo-China. It is particularly common in Cambodia and southern Vietnam, rare in northern Vietnam. In north-east Thailand it is widely cultivated for its fruits.
Uses
The seed contains a drying oil which is used to coat silverware and paper umbrellas, to produce soap, as a binding material and to make paint, ink and lacquerware. The seed and the thin, sweet, outer fleshy layer of the fruit are edible and used as food in poor regions. The wood is hard and difficult to work but not resistant to insect attack. Trees with a reasonable bole length are used as timber for light and medium constructions under cover (wood is traded as "merbatu").
Observations
A tree up to 30 m tall; bole up to 10 m long and 30-70 cm in diameter, often with buttresses, bark yellow when young, turning grey-brown; crown dense and roundish, young twigs with limp leaves drooping. Leaves arranged spirally, simple, coriaceous; stipules narrow; petiole about 1 cm long, usually with 2 small glands below the middle; blade broadly elliptical to oblong, 6-15 cm × 4-9 cm, largest near inflorescence, base truncate or rounded, margin entire, apex obtuse, rounded, acute or cuspidate, lateral veins 12-18 pairs, conspicuous in lower surface which is yellow-brown hairy (whitish in flush leaves). Inflorescence a terminal, pyramidal panicle, 8-15 cm long, densely yellow-brown pilose; flowers bisexual, sessile, white, fragrant; receptacle a short tube, 2-2.5 mm long, gibbose; calyx 5-lobed, 1.5 mm long; petals 5, 1.5 mm long, white; stamens 5-12 (fertile ones 8-10), unequal; ovary adnate to one side of the throat of the calyx, 2-locular, ovules 1 per locule, densely pilose, style as long as stamens. Fruit drupe-like with thin fleshy, edible exocarp, bony mesocarp and hard endocarp, subglobose to ellipsoid, 3-4 cm in diameter, covered by grey scabs, containing 1-2 seeds. P. anamensis is widespread in evergreen, mixed deciduous, and dry dipterocarp forest, up to 1500 m altitude. Flowering period is March-April, fruiting May-June, fruits remain on the tree until next flowering season. It is propagated by seed. The seed oil contains eleostearic acid which quickly polymerizes when subjected to ultraviolet radiation. P. anamensis needs protection in its natural distribution area because it is in danger of extinction danger due to over cutting. It much resembles P. sumatrana (Jack) Benth. which occurs in Sumatra and western Java and could be the same species.
Selected sources
23, 42, 43, 67, 59, 74, 114, 115.
