Shorea platycarpa (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Shorea platycarpa Heim

Protologue: Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Paris 2: 956 (1891).

Synonyms

• Shorea palustris Ridley (1922).

Vernacular names

• Brunei: meranti paya
• Indonesia: lanan tembaga (South Kalimantan), meranti lengkung daun (Sumatra), pengerawan pepa (West Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: meranti paya (general), perawan tulop (Sarawak), seraya paya (Sabah).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and intervening islands.

Uses

The timber is used as light or dark red meranti.

Observations

• A medium-sized to large tree up to 50 m tall with bole branchless for 18-26 m and up to 125 cm in diameter, buttresses up to 4 m high.
• Leaves elliptical-oblong to broadly ovate, thinly leathery, 9-17 cm × 5.5-10 cm, with 16-20 pairs of secondary veins, lower surface scabrid tomentose.
• Stamens 15, anthers subglobose with short appendages, stylopodium narrowly ovoid.
• Larger fruit calyx lobes up to 6.5 cm × 1.2 cm.

S. platycarpa is locally common or semi-gregarious in mixed peat-swamp forest at 300-1350 m altitude. The density of the wood is 515-865 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content and the wood is therefore comparatively heavy.

Selected sources

30, 89, 100, 102, 253, 258, 514, 677, 748.

Main genus page

• Shorea (red meranti)

Authors

M.S.M. Sosef (selection of species)