Terminalia megalocarpa (PROSEA)

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Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Terminalia megalocarpa Exell

Protologue: Journ. Bot., Lond. 73: 132 (1935).

Synonyms

Terminalia solomonensis Exell (1935) p.p.

Distribution

New Guinea (not in the Bismarck Archipelago) and the Solomon Islands.

Uses

The wood is used in Papua New Guinea as yellow-brown terminalia, e.g. for house construction and canoe making, also as firewood. The outer flesh of the fruit is edible, either raw or baked or roasted.

Observations

A medium-sized to fairly large tree up to 40 m tall, bole branchless for up to 12 m, cylindrical; leaves elliptical or sometimes obovate, 9-18 cm × 5-9 cm, cuneate at base, glabrous, with 8-11 pairs of secondary veins, petiole 3-7 cm long; flowers in an axillary spike 10-12 cm long, calyx tube hairy; fruit ellipsoid to subglobose, 4-8 cm long, glabrous, smooth and not winged. T. megalocarpa is found in lowland forest; in the Solomon Islands it is often planted or preserved around villages. The density of the yellow-brown wood is about 640 kg/m³at 12% moisture content.

Selected sources

101, 145, 229, 289, 718.