4700

5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Terminalia bellirica (Gaertner) Roxb.

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

Pl. Coromandel 2: 54, t. 198 (1805).

Terminalia punctata Roth (1821), Terminalia laurinoides Teijsm. & Binnend. ex Miq. (1855), Terminalia bellirica var. laurinoides (Teijsm. & Binnend. ex Miq.) Clarke (1878).

Beleric myrobalan, belliric myrabolan, bedda nut tree (En). Myrobalan beleric (Fr). Indonesia: jaha kebo, jaha sapi (Javanese), ulu belu (Sumatra). Malaysia: jelawai, simar kulihap (Peninsular). Burma (Myanmar): thitsein. Cambodia: srâmâr piphéék. Laos: hèèn, nam kièng dam. Thailand: haen-khao, haen-ton (eastern, northern), samo-phiphek (central). Vietnam: b[af]ng n[uw][ows]c, mung tr[awf]ng, b[oo]ng d[ee]u.

From Sri Lanka, India and Nepal through Burma (Myanmar) Indo-China and Thailand towards Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo (Sabah), the Lesser Sunda Islands, central Sulawesi and the Moluccas; rarely cultivated.

The wood is used e.g. for boxes, furniture, and house construction after being steeped in water to make it more durable. The tree also yields a good-quality firewood and charcoal. Probably more important are the fruits, which contain tannin and a dye and are used to tan leather and dye cloth and matting, and to prepare ink. The kernels of the fruit can be eaten but are somewhat dangerous as they have a narcotic effect. The unripe fruit is purgative and the ripe fruit astringent. In India and Thailand the fruit is used medicinally to treat dropsy, haemorrhoids and diarrhoea.

A large briefly deciduous tree up to 50 m tall, bole branchless for up to 20 m, up to 300 cm in diameter, with large buttresses, bark surface finely longitudinally cracked or fissured, bluish or ash-grey to pale grey-brown, inner bark yellowish; leaves broadly elliptical or obovate-elliptical, 4—18 cm 2—11 cm, base rounded to cuneate, rufous-sericeous but soon glabrescent, with 6—9 pairs of secondary veins, secondary and tertiary venation prominent on both surfaces, petiole 2.5—9 cm long; flowers in an axillary spike 3—15 cm long, calyx tube densely sericeous or tomentulose; fruit subglobose to broadly ellipsoid, 2—2.8 cm 1.8—2.2 cm, densely velutinous or sericeous, with 5 well-marked longitudinal ridges. Terminalia bellirica is fairly common in monsoon forest, mixed deciduous forest or dry deciduous dipterocarp forest, sometimes associated with teak, rarely in evergreen forest, on periodically dry soils, up to 600 m altitude. The wood is whitish, rather soft, and has a density of 675—900 kg/m³ at 12% moisture content. See also the table on wood properties.

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[179]Fundter, J.M., de Graaf, N.R., Hildebrand, J.W. & van Valkenburg, J.L.C.H., 1991. Terminalia bellirica (Gaertner) Roxb. In: Lemmens, R.H.M.J. & Wulijarni-Soetjipto, N. (Editors): Plant resources of South-East Asia No 3. Dye and tannin-produ
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[449]Nanakorn, W., 1985. The genus Terminalia (Combretaceae) in Thailand. Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany) 15: 59–107.
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M.S.M. Sosef

Sosef, M.S.M., 1995. Terminalia bellirica (Gaertner) Roxb.. 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