Terminalia alata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: Nov. pl. sp.: 379 (1821).

Synonyms

Terminalia coriacea (Roxb.) Wight & Arn. (1834), Terminalia tomentosa (Roxb.) Wight & Arn. (1834), Terminalia macrocarpa Steud. (1841).

Vernacular names

Indian laurel (En). Burma (Myanmar): taukyan
Cambodia: chhlik bay, chhlik snaêng, neang phaëk
Laos: suak 'mon, suak dam, suak kieng
Thailand: rok fa, hok fa, chueak (central, northern)
Vietnam: băng lăng khề, cà lich, cẩm liên.

Distribution

India, Burma (Myanmar), Indo-China and Thailand.

Uses

T. alata is a valuable and commercial source of timber and may have potential in other South-East Asian countries. The wood is used as terminalia e.g. for house building, furniture, tool handles, and for underwater purposes. When quarter-sawn, the wood yields attractive veneer. The bark is used medicinally against diarrhoea. Oxalic acid can be extracted from it. The bark and especially the fruit yield pyrogallol and catechol to dye and tan leather. The leaves are used as fodder in Nepal.

Observations

A medium-sized to fairly large deciduous tree up to 35 m tall, bole up to 200 cm in diameter, bark surface with deep vertical fissures and transverse cracks, dark grey to blackish, inner bark reddish; leaves oblong to ovate-oblong, 7-20 cm × 4-10 cm, base obtuse, often oblique, apex rounded to acute, glabrous to tomentose, with 10-16 pairs of secondary veins, with a pair of stalked glands on the midrib near the base below, petiole 1-2 cm long; flowers in an axillary or terminal spike 6-15 cm long, calyx tube pubescent; fruit broadly ellipsoid, 4-6 cm × 2.5-5 cm, 5-winged, wings coriaceous, glabrous, 1-2 cm broad. T. alata is found in mixed deciduous forest, sometimes in dry dipterocarp forest, often on alluvial soils, up to 1000 m altitude. The density of the dark brown wood is about 1040 kg/m³at 12% moisture content.

Selected sources

163, 371, 383, 392, 449, 648, 666, 746.