Homalium grandiflorum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: Journ. Linn. Soc., Bot. 4: 36 (1860).

Synonyms

Homalium parvifolium Hook.f. ex Benth. (1860), Homalium damrongianum Craib (1915), Homalium fallax v. Slooten (1925), Homalium calciphilum Ridley (1928).

Vernacular names

Indonesia: langit (Java), kayu batu (Sumatra), bajud (Kalimantan)
Malaysia: kayu batu (Peninsular). Burma (Myanmar): te-bo
Thailand: taeng sang (Lampang), cha khian phueak (northern), phikun pa (central)
Vietnam: ky yen.

Distribution

Burma (Myanmar), throughout Indo-China and Thailand towards Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and Java.

Uses

H. grandiflorum is a fairly important source of malas timber; the wood is used for house building.

Observations

A small to medium-sized tree up to 30 m tall, bole with steep buttresses, bark with scattered lenticels; leaves ovate-elliptical to elliptical-oblong, (7-)10-15(-37) cm × 3-7(-15) cm, entire or nearly so, shortly obtusely acuminate, glabrous and shiny on both surfaces; racemes simple or sometimes shortly branched; flowers usually solitary, (5-)6-8(-9)-merous, with lanceolate-oblong bracts, sepals and petals glabrescent, stamens in groups of 1-3 between the disk glands, the rest in pairs inserted on the base of the petals. Within H. grandiflorum 2 varieties are distinguished: var. grandiflorum and var. javanicum (Koord. & Valeton) Sleumer. The latter, differing from the first by its nearly woolly, more laxly flowered inflorescence, occurs in mixed rain forest on Java. Var. grandiflorum is more widely distributed and occurs in lowland rain forest on hilly and sandy sites that are never inundated, up to 600 m altitude. Sterile specimens cannot be distinguished from H. dictyoneurum . The wood is reported as hard, difficult to work and its density is 950-990 kg/m³at 15% moisture content.

Selected sources

26, 77, 99, 140, 162, 163, 386, 474, 573, 574, 595, 661, 705, 734.