Phyllocladus (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Phyllocladus Rich. ex Mirbel

Protologue: Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris 13: 76 (1825).

Family: Podocarpaceae

Chromosome number: x= 9; 2n= 18 for several non-Malesian species

Trade groups

Sempilor: lightweight to medium-weight softwood, a single species in Malesia, Phyllocladus hypophyllus Hook.f., Icon. Pl. n.s. 5: t. 889 (1852), synonyms: Phyllocladus major Pilger (1916), Phyllocladus protractus (Warb.) Pilger (1903).

The timber is traded as sempilor together with that of Dacrydium and Falcatifolium . In Indonesia, all Podocarpaceae timber is traded as "melur".

Vernacular names

Sempilor: celery pine (En)
Indonesia: bejalin (Moluccas), kayu empire (Sulawesi), kayu karongan (Kalimantan)
Malaysia: phyllocladus (Sabah)
Papua New Guinea: celery pine, Papua New Guinea celery-top pine (general)
Philippines: dalung (Cebu Bisaya, Tinggian), galingkinga (Agusan), salumayag (Davao).

Origin and geographic distribution

Phyllocladus consists of 5 closely related species, 3 of which occur in New Zealand, 1 in Tasmania and 1 ( P. hypophyllus ) in Borneo, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, the Philippines and New Guinea.

Uses

The wood is used for light construction, light flooring, furniture, cupboards, mouldings, joinery, interior finish, boat building, turnery, carving, matches, veneer, plywood, and for special purposes such as laboratory bench tops, in storage batteries, reconditioning chambers and foundry patterns. Copal has been collected by tapping the trees.

Production and international trade

No statistics are available on the trade of Phyllocladus timber; the amounts traded are probably insignificant. In Papua New Guinea, the export of logs of all Podocarpaceae , including Phyllocladus , is banned to encourage domestic processing of this highly valued timber.

Properties

Phyllocladus yields a lightweight to medium-weight wood. The heartwood is pale pinkish-brown, buff-coloured or yellow-brown, with fawn streaks or without figure, indistinctly or distinctly demarcated from the straw-coloured to pale brown sapwood. The density is 550-610 kg/m³at 12% moisture content. The grain is straight, texture very fine and even. The wood is glossy and has no taste, but occasionally has an unpleasant odour like ramin ( Gonystylus spp.).

There is no test on mechanical properties available, but the wood is reported to be moderately strong.

The rates of shrinkage are moderate to fairly high, up to 2.0% radial and 4.5% tangential from green to 15% moisture content, but for wood from Papua New Guinea a shrinkage of only 1.6% radial and 3.4% tangential has been reported from green to 12% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties. The wood seasons fairly well, but compression wood may occur, causing considerable longitudinal shrinkage and some distortion. Large initial moisture content variations may occur, resulting in a considerable final moisture range. Warping is often present, and the back-sawn stock may twist to a considerable degree, unless stacks are weighted down and closely spaced stickers are used. Boards 25 mm thick can be kiln dried from green to 12% moisture content in about 7 days. A high humidity treatment after drying is recommended. Movement of the wood in service is low.

The wood is moderately easy to very easy to work with hand and machine tools, planes to a smooth surface and peels excellently.

It is non-durable in contact with the ground or when exposed and prone to termite and marine borer attack, but it is not susceptible to Lyctus attack. The sapwood is permeable, the heartwood probably resistant to preservatives when using a pressure treatment. The wood is resistant to chemical action and to hot and cold liquids.

The wood contains 52.6% cellulose, 25.2% lignin, 14.9% pentosan, 0.1% ash and 0.1% silica. The solubility is 2.0% in alcohol-benzene, 4.8% in cold water, 6.8% in hot water and 16.3% in a 1% NaOH solution.

Description

A usually dioecious shrub or small to medium-sized tree up to 30 m tall; bole generally short, with a diameter up to 50(-100) cm; bark surface smooth, hard, with large lenticels, dark brown to reddish, breaking off in large more or less rectangular scales with age, inner bark pale brown to red-brown; primary branches tending to be in false whorls, secondary branching abundant. Foliar shoots flattened into phylloclades, usually consisting of 5-10 pinnately placed segments, these deeply lobed on young plants, becoming diamond-shaped to ovate with wavy margins on older individuals, then 1.5-6 cm × 1-3 cm. Pollen cones clustered in the axil of a scale of a secondary shoot, subtended by a mostly naked stalk and a few sterile scales, cylindrical, 8-15 mm × 3 mm; apex of microsporophyll triangular, irregularly toothed. Seed-bearing structure usually solitary, in an apical notch of a bilobed cladode or terminal on a reduced cladode or on a naked stalk, ovoid, more or less purple, with up to 15 scales; 1-3 scales fertile and becoming bright red when mature. Mature seed erect, shiny brown, 5-7 mm long, apiculate, the lower half enveloped by a rough-edged, papery, greyish scale. Seedling bearing spirally arranged, single-veined, linear, bifacially flattened leaves up to 1 cm long.

Wood anatomy

Macroscopic characters:

Heartwood pale pinkish-brown, creamy yellow-brown to brown, sometimes with brown streaks (usually near the pith and resulting from compression wood), usually clearly demarcated from the straw-coloured to pale brown sapwood. Grain straight. Texture very fine and even; wood with some lustre, occasionally with an unpleasant odour similar to ramin ( Gonystylus ). Growth rings very narrow and evenly spaced, resulting in some figure in the wood, sometimes growth rings indistinct; rays very fine, not visible to the naked eye.

Microscopic characters:

Growth rings evident but not clearly marked, latewood tracheids rectangular, smaller, restricted to (1-)2-3 rows, somewhat thicker-walled. Tracheids rounded, rectangular, polygonal to irregular in cross-section, radially aligned, tangential diameter approximately 50-65μm, 3-4.5 mm long; intertracheid pits in single loose rows, paired and opposite in some wider tracheids, moderately large to large (20-25μm in diameter), rounded; smaller pits in tangential walls mostly in latewood tracheids, c. 14-16μm in diameter. Parenchyma absent. Rays 5-8/mm, predominantly uniseriate, (1-)6-8(-15) cells high, end walls smooth; ray-tracheid pits half-bordered, with a markedly reduced border, large, typically 18-22μm in diameter, 1-2 per crossfield, rounded to oblique, crossfields often containing somewhat larger single pits occupying most of the crossfield area, smaller pits typically taxodioid. Ray tracheids absent, resin ducts absent. Little extraneous material present in ray cells.

Wood of Agathis , Falcatifolium , Nageia , Podocarpus and Prumnopitys can resemble Phyllocladus . Agathis differs from the other genera by having alternate intertracheid pits. Prumnopitys and Phyllocladus can be distinguished from the remaining genera by the absence of parenchyma. Prumnopitys has characteristically large window-like crossfield pits.

Growth and development

The 2 cotyledons of the seedling are usually early deciduous, but may last for 2 years or more. The earlier formed cladodes are simple; these are gradually replaced by deeply lobed ones. The early-formed cladodes, however, are highly polymorphic with respect to shape, size, and dentation. Root nodules which contain symbiotic, nitrogen-fixing bacteria have been observed in seedlings.

The highly contrasting colours of the seed cones with bright red scales, a pale aril and chestnut-brown seed, are thought to indicate that the seed is dispersed by birds.

Other botanical information

Some authors contend that Phyllocladus is significantly different from other Podocarpaceae and should have the status of a separate family, viz. the Phyllocladaceae . More recent opinions, however, do not support this view.

Ecology

Phyllocladus occurs scattered, only locally common, as a subcanopy or canopy tree in moist montane or submontane forest at 900-2000 m altitude and occasionally in kerangas forest above 1000 m altitude. It may be more common at higher elevations, up to 4000 m, but is then much shorter. In New Guinea, it is often associated with other podocarps and Nothofagus spp.

Silviculture and management

Phyllocladus has been observed as a pioneer in disturbed, pyrogenous open land at 2500-3000 m altitude.

Harvesting

Montane forest where Phyllocladus occurs is difficult to exploit due to the undulating to steep terrain. Conventional machinery cannot be used.

Handling after harvest

Pit-saw teams convert logs into timber for construction in remote areas in Papua New Guinea.

Genetic resources

In view of the fairly large area of distribution and the low pressure on natural forest in which P. hypophyllus is found, genetic resources are safeguarded satisfactorily.

Prospects

For Irian Jaya P. hypophyllus is reported to have high-value export potential for furniture. Wood properties are rated as good, but it is unlikely that it will play an increasingly important role in the near future, due to the poor accessibility of montane forest.

Literature

Bloemen, J., 1950. Het naaldhout in de Maleise Archipel [The coniferous species of the Malayan Archipelago]. Wageningen Agricultural University. 45 pp.
de Laubenfels, D.J., 1969. A revision of the Malesian and Pacific rainforest conifers, I. Podocarpaceae, in part. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 50: 277-282.
de Laubenfels, D.J., 1978. The taxonomy of Philippine Coniferae and Taxaceae. Kalikasan 7: 117-152.
de Laubenfels, D.J., 1988. Coniferales. In: van Steenis, C.G.G.J. & de Wilde, W.J.J.O. (Editors): Flora Malesiana. Ser. 1, Vol. 10. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Boston, London. pp. 355-360.
Forest Product Research Centre, 1967. Properties and uses of Papua and New Guinea timbers. Port Moresby. 30 pp.
Gaussen, H., 1974. Les Gymnospermes actuelles et fossiles. Chapitre 20: Les Coniférales 12 [Living and fossile gymnosperms. Chapter 20: The Coniferales 12]. Travaux du Laboratoire Forestier de Toulouse. Tom. 2, Etudes Dendrologiques. Vol. 1, part. II-3. pp. 13-66.
Keng, H., 1963. Phyllocladus hypophyllus Hook.f. The Gardens' Bulletin, Singapore 20: 123-126.
Keng, H., 1978. The genus Phyllocladus (Phyllocladaceae). Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 59: 249-273.
Page, C.N., 1990. Phyllocladaceae. In: Kramer, K.U. & Green, P.S. (Editors): The families and genera of vascular plants I. Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms. SpringerVerlag, Berlin, Heidelberg. pp. 317-319.
Soewarsono, P.H., 1965. Identifikasi kaju-kaju konifer Indonesia jang penting-penting [Identification of important Indonesian conifer woods]. Rimba Indonesia 10: 175-193.

Other selected sources 71, 77, 117, 145, 213, 231, 268, 289, 291, 394, 404, 474, 482, 513, 527, 653.

E. Boer (general part, properties),

M.S.M. Sosef (general part),

J. Ilic (wood anatomy)