Gluta velutina (PROSEA)
Introduction |
Gluta velutina Blume
- Protologue: Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Bat. 1: 183 (1850).
Synonyms
Gluta coarctata (Griffith) Hook.f. (1876).
Vernacular names
- Indonesia: rengas pendek (Sumatra)
- Malaysia: rengas ayer, rengas pantai (Peninsular)
- Thailand: rak nam (Surat Thani)
- Vietnam: cây sơn dai.
Distribution
Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Vietnam, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, western Java (collected only once) and Borneo.
Uses
The wood is used as rengas, but the timber is only available in small dimensions. The seeds and leaves are reportedly edible, but this needs confirmation, as other parts of the plant contain irritant or even poisonous substances (especially the bark). The exudate is sometimes used as lacquer.
Observations
A large shrub or small to medium-sized tree up to 20 m tall, with often gnarled bole up to 50 cm in diameter, often with branched stilt roots and short, sharp buttresses, bark surface smooth to minutely scaly, pinkish-brown; leaves elliptical-oblong to oblanceolate, 12-32 cm × 5-8 cm, obtuse to acuminate at apex, glabrous, with 16-32 pairs of secondary veins, petiole very short, up to 1 cm long; flowers with irregularly bursting calyx, petals 7-9 mm long, whitish or pinkish, torus cylindrical, 1.5-2 mm long, stamens 5, ovary glabrous; fruit subglobose, up to 7.5 cm in diameter, with a short, c. 5 mm long stalk, pale brown scurfy with irregularly tuberculate ridges especially towards the base, without enlarged petals; cotyledons free. G. velutina is common along edges of tidal rivers on submerged mud-banks in the freshwater or slightly brackish zone, together with Barringtonia conoidea Griffith and Pandanus helicopus Griffith. The density of the sapwood is only about 320 kg/m3at 15% moisture content.
Selected sources
77, 78, 104, 162, 163, 474, 576, 595, 705.