3919

5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Acacia mangium Willd.

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

Sp. Pl. ed 4, 4: 1053 (1806).

Racosperma mangium (Willd.) Pedley (1987).

Brown salwood, black wattle, hickory wattle (En). Indonesia: tongke hutan, mangge hutan (general), nak (Moluccas). Malaysia: mangium (general). Thailand: krathin-thepha.

Sula Islands, Seram, Aru Islands, Irian Jaya, Western Province of Papua New Guinea and north-eastern Queensland; planted elsewhere in the Malesian region, especially in Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia, also as an ornamental.

Acacia mangium is an important source of wattle timber; the wood is used for e.g. construction, boat building, furniture and cabinet-making, veneer, but it also makes excellent particle board. The pulp is readily bleached to high brightness levels and is excellent for paper making. The tree is also used for firewood, and is occasionally planted as an ornamental, for erosion control, or as fire-break or windbreak. The leaves may serve as forage for cattle.

A medium-sized to fairly large tree up to 35 m tall, bole branchless for up to 15 m, up to 90 cm in diameter, bark surface fissured near the base, greyish-brown to dark brown, inner bark pale brown, branchlets acutely triangular; phyllodes straight or straight along one side and curved along the other, up to 25 cm 3.5—9 cm, 2—5 times as long as wide, with 4 (or 5) main longitudinal veins, secondary veins finely anastomosing; flowers in spikes, 5-merous, corolla 1.2—1.5 mm long; pod linear, coiled, up to 10 cm 0.3—0.5 cm, membranous to slightly woody, inconspicuously veined. Acacia mangium is found, sometimes dominant, in primary and secondary forest, forest margins, savanna, grassland, savanna woodland, on poorly drained floodplains and along fringes of mangrove forest where it is sometimes associated with Melaleuca and Rhizophora spp., up to 200 m altitude in Malesia, but up to 500(—800) m in Australia. In New Guinea, it often prefers slightly higher and drier sites than other Acacia species growing in the same area. The density of the wood is (450—)530—690 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

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[691]Weinland, G., 1987. Zum Jugendwachstum von Acacia mangium Willd. [About the early growth of Acacia mangium Willd.]. Thesis. Göttingen. 188 pp.
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F. Arentz

Arentz, F., 1995. Acacia mangium Willd.. 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