Vatica umbonata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Vatica umbonata (Hook.f.) Burck

Protologue: Ann. Jard. Bot. Buitenzorg 6: 232 (1887).

Vernacular names

• Brunei: resak ayer
• Indonesia: damar tingkis (Kalimantan)
• Malaysia: resak labuan (Sabah), resak ayer (Sarawak)
• Philippines: Blanco narig (general), lutab, tampusok (Sulu).

Distribution

Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo and the southern Philippines (Palawan).

Uses

The timber is used as resak for construction of houses, bridges and wharfs and other purposes requiring strength and durability.

Observations

• A small to medium-sized tree, up to 30 m tall, but often much less, with often crooked, low-branching bole up to 30(-45) cm in diameter and small buttresses.
• Leaves elliptical, 8-16 cm × 3-6.5 cm, with 7-8 pairs of secondary veins, glabrescent, petiole 7-15 mm long.
• Inflorescences brittle, up to 12 cm long.
• Flower buds up to 10 mm long.
• Nut ovoid or globose, up to 30 mm long, with 5 equal, corky fruit calyx lobes fused with the verrucose pericarp.

Subsp. acrocarpa (v. Slooten) P. Ashton (synonym: Vatica acrocarpa v. Slooten) differs from subsp. umbonata (synonyms: Pachynocarpus umbonatus Hook.f., Vatica blancoana Elmer, Vatica cupularis v. Slooten) in the more ovoid and acute nut, and in the reflexed fruit calyx lobes united at the basal half of the nut only; it is apparently confined to river banks in eastern Borneo. Subsp. umbonata is locally abundant on river banks, and it occurs more scattered on hillsides and mountains up to 1300 m altitude. The density of the wood is 735-1220 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

30, 89, 100, 175, 318, 425, 484, 579, 748.

Main genus page

• Vatica

Authors

• R.H.M.J. Lemmens (selection of species)