4259

5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Gluta renghas L.

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

Mant. pl. 2: 293 (1771).

Indonesia: kayu rengas suloh (Sumatra), rengas burung (Sumatra, Kalimantan), rengas tembaga (Java). Malaysia: rengas ayer, rengas jitong (Peninsular). Burma (Myanmar): thayet-thitsi. Thailand: rak baan (Songkhla), rak khao (Ranong).

Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi and once found in the Moluccas; possibly also in Burma (Myanmar) and southern Thailand.

The timber is used for columns and beams in house and bridge construction, railway sleepers, shipbuilding (keels) and turnery and is very suitable for furniture, panels, floors and veneer. The resin is collected for varnish manufacture. Roasted seeds are eaten.

SUP> A medium-sized to large tree up to 50 m tall, with bole up to 115 cm in diameter, often multiple-stemmed and conically thickened at base, buttresses often present, bark surface dippled and scaly, pale brown to greyish; leaves elliptical-oblong to oblanceolate or obovate, 8—28(—36) cm 4—8(—9) cm, obtuse at apex, glabrous, with 17—30 pairs of secondary veins, petiole up to 3 cm long; flowers with irregularly bursting calyx, petals 7.5—13 mm long, white, torus cylindrical, 2—3 mm long, stamens 5, ovary glabrous; fruit subglobose, up to 5 cm in diameter, with short or indistinct stalk up to 5 mm long, pinkish-brown scurfy and with irregular crests and protuberances, without enlarged petals; cotyledons incompletely fused. Gluta renghas occurs locally gregariously along river banks in freshwater tidal reaches and in swamp forest without peat formation. The density of the heartwood is 590—840 kg/m³ at 15% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

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R.H.M.J. Lemmens

Lemmens, R.H.M.J., 1995. Gluta renghas L.. 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