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5(2):Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Wrightia arborea (Dennst.) Mabberley

This article should be read together with the article on the genus: Wrightia in the Handbook volume indicated above in this database.

Taxon 26: 533 (1977).

Wrightia tomentosa (Roxb.) Roem. & Schultes (1819), Wrightia hamiltoniana Wallich (1828), Wrightia wallichii A.DC. (1844).

Burma (Myanmar): let-thoke, taungsalat. Thailand: mok-man (general), muk-man (Nan), nae-kae (Karen-Mae Hong Son). Vietnam: m[uws]c l[oo]ng, th[uwf]ng m[uws]c l[oo]ng.

India, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), southern China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.

The wood is used as lanete, e.g. for general construction, pencils, carving, turnery, wooden shoes and packaging. An indigo-yielding glucoside used to dye clothes in India can be obtained from the seeds, roots and leaves. In India, the bark of stem and roots is regarded as an antidote against snake bites and scorpion stings. In Burma (Myanmar), the bark is used to treat renal complaints.

A small to medium-sized tree up to 20 m tall, bole up to 35 cm in diameter, bark surface greyish, branches puberulent; leaves elliptical to broadly ovate or broadly obovate, 6-18 cm x 3-8 cm, puberulent but glabrescent above, with 10-15 pairs of secondary veins, petiole 0.3-0.8 cm long; flowers pale yellowish, pinkish or reddish, corolla subrotate, the tube 3-7 mm long, the lobes 8-16 mm long, stamens inserted at the mouth of the tube; follicles coherent, broadly fusiform, 17-35 cm long, densely and conspicuously lenticellate. Wrightia arborea is fairly common and found in deciduous forest and thickets, often along streams, on sandy or rocky soils, up to 1650 m altitude. The density of the wood is 545-785 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. 2nd edition. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operative, Kuala Lumpur. Vol. 1 (A-H) pp. 1-1240. Vol. 2 (I-Z) pp. 1241-2444.
Cay rung Viet nam [Forest trees of Vietnam] (various editors), 1971-1988. Agriculture Publisher, Hanoi.
Gamble, J.S., 1922. A manual of Indian timbers. 2nd edition. Sampsom Low, Marston & Company, London. 868 pp.
Hallé, F., Oldeman, R.A.A. & Tomlinson, P.B., 1978. Tropical trees and forests - an architectural analysis. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York. 441 pp.
Ingle, H.D. & Dadswell, H.E., 1953. The anatomy of the timbers of the south-west Pacific area. II. Apocynaceae and Annonaceae. Australian Journal of Botany 1: 10-11.
Ngan, P.T., 1965. A revision of the genus Wrightia (Apocynaceae). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 52: 114-175.
Pham Hoang Ho, 1993. An illustrated flora of Vietnam. Vol. II(2). Mekong Publisher, Montreal.
Tran Dinh Ly, 1986. Die Familie Apocynaceae Juss. in Vietnam. Teil 3: Spezieller Teil (2) [The family of the Apocynaceae Juss. in Vietnam. Part 3: special part (2)]. Feddes Repertorium 97: 607-689.
Troup, R.S., 1921. Silviculture of Indian trees. 3 volumes. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Nguyen Ba & Nguyen Nghia Thin

Ba, N. & Thin, N.N., 1995. Wrightia arborea (Dennst.) Mabberley. In: Lemmens, R.H.M.J., Soerianegara, I. and Wong, W.C. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 5(2):Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea