Toona calantas (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Toona calantas Merr. & Rolfe

Protologue: Philipp. Journ. Sci., Bot. 3: 105 (1908).

Synonyms

Toona paucijuga Merr. (1912), Cedrela calantas (Merr. & Rolfe) Burkill (1930).

Vernacular names

• Philippines: kalantas (general), danupra (Iloko).

Distribution

Throughout the Philippines.

Uses

The timber is used as surian, especially for furniture, musical instruments, cigar boxes and plywood. The wood is suitable for shiitake mushroom culture, and may be applied as an aromatic wood for its pleasant cedar smell. Decoctions of bark and flowers are used in local medicine because of their astringent, antiseptic and antispasmodic properties.

Observations

A medium-sized tree up to 25 m tall, with terete and straight bole branchless for up to 20 m and up to 100(-150) cm in diameter, buttresses not prominent; leaflets entire, glabrescent above; petals glabrous; fruit comparatively large, (2-)3-4 cm long, valves with numerous lenticels often smaller and denser towards the base of the fruit; seed unequally winged at both ends. T. calantas occurs scattered in primary rain forest at low and medium altitudes. The stands have been depleted by logging and shifting cultivation. The correct taxonomic status is uncertain; possibly it is a large-fruited geographical variant of T. sureni or T. ciliata , although it may be a distinct species. It probably also occurs outside the Philippines. The density of the wood is about 430 kg/m³at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

78, 124, 125, 146, 257, 414, 426, 527, 626, 738.