Article

Trees

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Trees

Trees of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo have long occupied a central position in the region’s natural history, economy, and cultural life. From the towering Koompassia excelsa (Tualang) that pierces the forest canopy at 265 feet [1, pp. 382–383] to the small aromatic Aquilaria hirta whose heartwood commands prices in the incense trade [2, pp. 78–79], the trees of the region span an extraordinary range of form, function, and commercial value. They supply timber for construction and shipbuilding, resins for export, and fragrant woods for ritual and perfumery; they anchor forest ecosystems whose structure and zonation have been mapped only in recent decades [3, pp. 138–142]; and they have been the subject of sustained scientific investigation from the earliest decades of colonial botanical survey through the conservation movements of the late twentieth century.

Taxonomy and Nomenclature

The botanical documentation of Malayan trees has been shaped by persistent problems of nomenclatural confusion, misidentification, and the difficulty of distinguishing closely allied species in the field. H.N. Ridley, Government Botanist for the Straits Settlements, addressed these problems directly in his 1901 study of the incense woods Garu and Chandan, arguing that the Malaccan Aquilaria malaccensis had been wrongly conflated with the Indian A. agallocha in earlier literature, and that the Malay term “Chandan” was applied to at least two botanically unrelated plants [2, pp. 73–75]. Ridley described a new species, A. hirta, from specimens collected at Bukit Pengaram in Johor and Kranji in Singapore, distinguished by the persistent silky pubescence on its leaves, flowers, and fruit [2, pp. 78–79]. He further identified “Pahang Chandan” not as an Aquilaria at all but as Wikstroemia Candolleana, a small mountain tree of the Thymeleaceae growing at 4,000–5,000 feet [2, pp. 80–81].

F.W. Foxworthy continued this corrective work in the 1920s. In a 1927 note, he addressed misidentifications affecting nine common timber species, the most substantial being the confirmation that Chengal is uniformly Balanocarpus heimii King, a name that had been confused with the rare B. maximus for thirty years [4, p. 339]. He also transferred Malut from Balanocarpus to Hopea on the basis of new fruiting material from Lankawi, and noted the invalidity of the generic name Coccomelia for Merbatu due to prior use in the Euphorbiaceae [4, pp. 340–341].

I.H. Burkill’s 1917 monograph on Gordonia (Theaceae) represents the most ambitious taxonomic treatment of a single genus in the Society’s literature. Burkill traced the nomenclatural history from Linnaeus’s initial placement of the American Lobolly Bay in Hypericum (1737) through John Ellis’s establishment of the genus (1770), and surveyed the sequence in which over twenty Asiatic species were detected between 1826 and 1916, spanning Java, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, Borneo, the Philippines, Sikkim, Tonkin, and South-West China [5, pp. 133–135]. His central argument was a rebuttal of Korthals (1839–42) and Pitard (1902), who had each attempted to sever the Asiatic species from the American on the grounds of their discontinuous distribution. Burkill demonstrated that such a pattern is common throughout the allied genera of the Theeae and Ternstroemieae, attributing it to the group’s demand for moist air rather than to any fundamental morphological divide [5, pp. 135–137]. He described four new species—G. taipingensis, G. concentricatrix, G. Havilandii, and G. lanceifolia—bringing his total count to 28, or well over 30 if the proposed absorption of the Asiatic species of Haemocharris is effected [5, pp. 147–156].

E.D. Merrill’s 1918 revision of three genera in the Singapore Herbarium—Eugenia, Schefflera, and Saurauia—introduced fourteen new species from Borneo, drawing heavily on the extensive Sarawak collections of Haviland and Ridley [6, pp. 19–35]. The Bornean Schefflera flora was increased from six to ten species in the Singapore Herbarium, with a further five in the Bureau of Science herbarium bringing the total known Bornean count to nineteen [6, p. 27].

Economic and Commercial Significance

The commercial exploitation of Malayan trees has been documented across a wide range of products, from timber and resins to aromatic woods. Ridley recorded that good Garu commanded a price of four hundred dollars per picul at the turn of the twentieth century [2, p. 77]. The aromatic resinous wood of Aquilaria malaccensis is found only in the hollow centres of certain old, apparently injured specimens, while the ordinary wood is soft, white, and commercially worthless [2, p. 74]. The trade was further complicated by widespread adulteration, including the practice of scenting decayed wood with Calambac shavings to pass it off as genuine [2, pp. 80–82].

Gutta-percha presented a different economic problem. L. Wray, a scientific assistant in the Perak State Service, published a survey of gutta-producing trees in 1883, prefaced by an introduction from Hugh Low, the British Resident of Perak [7, p. 207]. The historical context was the visible depletion of mature gutta trees in Perak, which had reached a point where Low advised the state government in 1880 to forbid export altogether as the only means of preventing the annihilation of the species [7, p. 209]. Wray’s experiments, conducted in May and August 1883, demonstrated that the traditional Malay method of collecting gutta by scoring the bark of felled trees wasted the overwhelming majority of the product. A Dichopsis Gutta tree two feet in diameter and over one hundred years old yielded only 2 lb 5 oz of gutta by the traditional scoring method, valued at 7s. 6d. [7, p. 212]. Wray calculated that for every pound of gutta collected by the traditional method, approximately 37 pounds were wasted in the bark left to rot in the jungle [7, p. 219]. Accepting the Kew Report’s 1875 estimate of 10 million pounds of gutta exported from the Straits Settlements, he calculated that 300 million pounds—worth £37,500,000 at 2s. 6d. per pound—were destroyed in that single year alone [7, pp. 219–220]. He identified Payena Leerii (Getah Sundik) as the most suitable species for government plantation on coastal swamp lands, being fast-growing, free-fruiting, and producing hard, close-grained timber as a secondary product [7, p. 221].

Timber properties have been documented for numerous species. The timber of Gordonia hirtella has a black heartwood, sinks in water, and is used for durable house posts in the Malay Peninsula [5, p. 143]. Gordonia concentricatrix, known in Malay as kelat samak, samak pulut, and kelat merah, produces tough, close-grained timber suitable for house-building, while its bark is used in Pahang for dyeing fishing nets and clothing [8, p. 50]. Foxworthy compiled a table of average and maximum diameters for various timber species from valuation surveys conducted over the preceding five years across most states of the Peninsula [1, p. 383].

Physical Dimensions and Forest Structure

The recorded dimensions of Malayan trees, while not approaching those of the largest North American or Australian specimens, are comparable to the largest trees of other eastern tropical regions [1, p. 382]. The tallest recorded tree is a Tualang (Koompassia excelsa) at 265 feet, measured by B. F. H. Barnard with a hypsometer, followed by a Kapur (Dryobalanops aromatica) at 220 feet; the average forest canopy height is a little over 150 feet [1, pp. 382–383]. The largest tree by girth is a Chengal (Balanocarpus heimii) in the Parit Forest Reserve, Kinta District, Perak, at 40 feet 5 inches in girth (154 inches diameter) and an estimated 125 feet to the first branch [1, p. 383].

Within the genus Gordonia, G. Welborni (Elmer, 1908) attains 50 metres (160 feet) with a straight trunk a metre thick, making it the largest known species; G. singaporiana reaches 43 metres (120 feet) [5, p. 141]. A specimen of G. singaporiana (Tree No. 1505 V, Singapore Botanic Gardens) was measured at 145 cm circumference at 130 cm from the ground, with an estimated height of about 70 feet, recorded for future re-measurement [5, p. 142]. G. concentricatrix is a 100-foot tree with concentric ring-marked bark [5, p. 153].

The structure of forest vegetation has been documented at the landscape scale. Barlow’s 1985 report on the Malayan Nature Society’s expedition to the Endau-Rompin area describes vegetational zonation along the Janing Barat Ridge: lowland forest to approximately 140 m above the Sg. Jasin, transitioning to Livistona palm forest extending to a plateau at about 440 m, beyond which lies swamp forest dominated by Johannesteysmannia altifrons [3, pp. 138–142]. A nine-storey tree tower reaching 103 feet above the ground was erected in a giant forest keruing by the Malaysian Armed Forces for microclimate studies [3, p. 138].

Disease, Damage, and Conservation

The vulnerability of Malayan trees to disease and physical damage has been a recurring theme in the Society’s literature. C.X. Furtado’s 1935 study of the Angsana disease (Pterocarpus indicus) represents a significant shift in understanding from a fungal to an entomological aetiology [9, pp. 163–192]. The disease was first recorded in Malacca approximately sixty years before publication (c. 1875), destroying an entire sea-front avenue; it appeared in Penang in 1906, in Tapah in December 1910, simultaneously in Taiping, Kuala Kubu, and Kuala Lumpur in 1912, in Pulau Brani in 1914, and in Singapore’s Connaught Drive in 1917 [9, pp. 163–164]. Furtado demonstrated that the characteristic symptom—a continuous longitudinal strip of dead cortical tissue extending from a root up the stem and into the branches—could not be explained by any of the previously proposed fungal agents, and that his inoculation experiments, repeated three times over two years, all yielded negative results [9, p. 176]. He identified a jassid (leafhopper) insect as invariably present in all diseased avenues and absent from healthy ones, arguing that its sustained feeding on tender growth causes profound physiological disturbances that ultimately kill the tree [9, pp. 177–178]. The oldest Angsana trees that died in Singapore’s Connaught Drive avenue were only 28 years old (planted 1890, died 1918), undermining the senile decay theory [9, p. 179].

Furtado’s companion study of lightning injuries to trees, also published in 1935, documented three strikes near the Singapore Botanic Gardens between July 1928 and January 1929 [10, pp. 157–162]. The physical properties of bark and wood—density, moisture content, presence of milky latex, thickness of corky layers—determine the pattern of injury: in Ficus variegata, the latex-rich bark absorbed the discharge and detached as a cylindrical jacket while the wood remained largely intact; in Fagraea fragrans, the thick dry outer bark and hard close-grained wood offered high resistance, producing violent splitting and bark fragments thrown up to twenty feet; in Albizia moluccana, the soft wood and thin bark conducted the current equally through both tissues, resulting in uniform splitting [10, pp. 158–160]. Furtado noted that in all three primary cases, death progressed from the top downwards, with the roots being the last tissue to die, and concluded that dicotyledonous trees could generally be saved by pollarding during the early stages of lightning damage [10, p. 162].

The conservation dimension emerged most clearly in the late twentieth century. Barlow’s 1985 report on the Endau-Rompin expedition argued that the area constitutes the last extensive tract of lowland primary forest in the south of the peninsula and warrants urgent protection [3, pp. 135–138]. The Endau-Kluang Wildlife Reserve was established in 1933 and the Segamat Wildlife Sanctuary in 1937 by Sultan Ibrahim of Johore; the Lesong Forest Reserve on the Pahang side dates to 1906 [3, p. 135]. The Federal National Parks Act (Act No. 226) passed in 1980 after eleven years of discussion, but no state government had yet exercised the initiative to request federal park designation by the time of writing [3, p. 138]. The public outcry generated by a half-page advertisement in the New Straits Times of 7 May 1977 is presented as a turning point that demonstrated Malaysian public commitment to conservation [3, p. 138].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on trees reveals a clear evolution in priorities and methodology across more than a century. The earliest contributions, such as Wray’s 1883 survey of gutta-producing trees, were commissioned by colonial administrators to support resource management decisions, with specimens dispatched to the Royal Gardens at Kew, Calcutta, and Ceylon for botanical identification [7, pp. 207–208]. Ridley’s 1901 study of incense woods similarly reflects the colonial scientific infrastructure of botanical surveys and specimen collection, drawing on primary sources including Rumphius’s Herbarium Amboinense and Garcia de Orta’s Coloquios [2, pp. 73–82].

The 1910s and 1920s saw a shift towards systematic taxonomic revision and the correction of nomenclatural errors. Burkill’s Gordonia monograph (1917) and Merrill’s Bornean revision (1918) represent the height of this phase, working from herbarium specimens accumulated over decades of colonial collecting [5, pp. 133–159], [6, pp. 19–35]. Foxworthy’s short notes on timber nomenclature (1926, 1927) served the practical needs of the forestry service and the preparation of commercial manuals [4, pp. 339–341], [1, pp. 382–384].

The 1930s introduced a more applied and ecological dimension. Furtado’s studies of the Angsana disease and lightning injuries reflect the concerns of the Straits Settlements research establishment with the health of urban and plantation trees [9, pp. 163–192], [10, pp. 157–162]. The Angsana disease study in particular marks a methodological advance, employing systematic elimination of competing hypotheses and controlled inoculation experiments—a rigour that distinguishes it from the earlier descriptive and taxonomic work.

By the 1980s, the focus had shifted decisively towards conservation and landscape-scale ecology. Barlow’s Endau-Rompin report functions simultaneously as a field report and a conservation advocacy piece, documenting vegetational zonation, endemic species, and the political obstacles to formal protection [3, pp. 135–142]. The expedition’s construction of a nine-storey tree tower for microclimate studies and its discovery of the endemic climbing bamboo Racemobambos setifera illustrate the integration of field biology with conservation policy [3, pp. 138]. The arc from Wray’s resource survey to Barlow’s conservation campaign thus traces the transformation of the Society’s engagement with trees from colonial extraction to ecological stewardship.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. F.W. Foxworthy (1926). The size of trees in the Malay Peninsula JMBRAS 4(3): 382–384. Read on JSTOR
  2. H.N. Ridley (1901). Garu and Chandan JSBRAS 35: 73–82. Read on JSTOR
  3. H.S. Barlow (1985). The Malayan Nature Society/Star Endau-Rompin Expedition JMBRAS 58(2): 135–142.
  4. F.W. Foxworthy (1927). Tree names – a few changes JMBRAS 5(2): 339–341. Read on JSTOR
  5. I.H. Burkill (1917). Gordonia JSBRAS 76: 133–159. Read on JSTOR
  6. E.D. Merrill (1918). The Bornean species of Eugenia, Scheffleria, and Saurauia represented in the Singapore herbarium JSBRAS 79: 19–35. Read on JSTOR
  7. L. Wray (1883). Gutta-producing trees JSBRAS 12: 207–221. Read on JSTOR
  8. G.E.S. Cubitt (1918). Gordonia concentricicatrix, Burkill (kelat samak, samak pulut, kelat merah – Malay JSBRAS 78: 49–50. Read on JSTOR
  9. C.X. Furtado (1935). A disease of the angsanatree JMBRAS 13(2): 163–192. Read on JSTOR
  10. C.X. Furtado (1935). Lightning injuries to trees JMBRAS 13(2): 157–162. Read on JSTOR