Mersawa Kuning - Landscapedaily

Scientific name : Anisoptera curtisii Dyer ex. King

Local name : Mersawa Kuning

Family : Dipterocarpaceae

BOTANICAL DESCRIPTIONS

Habit :

A smaller species than most Anisoptera. Large buttressed tree, up to 60 m tall. The bole is fissured to scaly, outer bark dull grey-brown, inner bark yellowish, thick, and the sapwood is white. The twigs are slender, harshly fulvous stellate-hairy towards the ends.

Leaves :

The leaves are elliptic, obovate-oblong or oblong, shortly acuminate, very variable in size, about 9 x 14 cm, about 12 to 25 nerved, venation scalariform-reticulate, softly hairy or smooth on the under surface and usually with minute yellow scales. The petiole is about 15 mm long, rough with fulvous stellate hairs.

Inflorescences :

In slender, drooping, terminal and axillary racemes, and with small and caducous bracteoles.

Flowers :

The tree has white flowers, 8 mm long, and with 25 stamens. The calyx tube are about 14 mm across.

Fruits :

Short-winged nuts, crowned with a short, sticky apiculus, wings to about 10 x 18 mm, and with short lobes, about 15 mm long.

LANDSCAPE USE :

Conservation status :

Critically endangered

Ecology and distribution :

The species usually occurs in mixed dipterocarp forest, mainly on coastal hills and inland ridges, up to 650 m altitude in Peninsular Thailand, Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia), Singapore and Indonesia (Sumatera). It is most common towards the north, particularly in Penang, Kedah and Perak, than elsewhere.

Diagnostic characters :

Smallest species in Anisoptera genus

Leaves:

very variable in size, softly hairy undersurface, with minute yellow scale

Flowers:

white

Fruits:

short winged nuts

Tree Trunk

Leaves

References

[1]Ashton, P. 1998.Anisoptera curtisii. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.1998.

[2] Foxworthy, F.W. 1932. Dipterocarpaceae of Malay Peninsula. Malayan Forest Records

10. Kuala Lumpur : Caxton Press Limited.

[3] Slooten, D.F. van. 1926. The Dipterocarpaceae of the Dutch East Indies 1: The genus

Anisoptera. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, 3 (8): 1-17.

[4] Symington, C. F. 1934. Notes on Malayan Dipterocarpaceae 2. Garden’s Bulletin of

Singapore. 8:1-40.

[5] Symington, C. F., Ashton, P. S., Appanah, S., Barlow, H. S. 2007. Foresters’ Manual of Dipterocarps. Malayan Forest Record No.16. Pp. 433-434. Malaysia: Forest

Research Institute Malaysia, Malaysian Nature Society.