Common Names - | Synonyms - |
Authority - Blume | Total Number of genera - 22 |
Gymnosperm or Angiosperm? - Angiosperm | Total Number of species - 680 |
Plant forms - Trees |
World Distribution - Asia, esp. Malaysia. distribution is pantropical, from northern South America to Africa, the Seychelles, India, Indochina, Indonesia and Malaysia, with the greatest diversity and abundance in Borneo |
Comments - Many huge timber trees. The basis for large commercial sales of wood.
The wood of these species tend to be resinous.
The largest genera are Shorea (196 species), Hopea (104 species), Dipterocarpus (70 species), and Vatica (65 species)[1]. Many are large forest emergent species, typically reaching heights of 40-70 m tall,
some even over 80 m (in the genera Dryobalanops[1], Hopea[2] and Shorea[2]), with the tallest known living specimen (Shorea faguetiana) 88.3 m tall[ |