The dipterocarps are a family of hardwood, tropical trees comprising about 500 species, with about 300 species located on the island of Borneo. Borneo is their center of gravity, followed by Peninsular Malaysia, South Thailand, and then Sumatra – basically the evergreen tropical rainforests of the Sunda region is where they thrive. There are many genera, like Shorea, Dipterocarpus, Anisoptera, Dryobalanops, Parashorea, Vatica, Hopea, Cotylelobium, and Neobalanocarpus, with Malay names like Meranti, Balau, Kapur, Chengal, and Keruing, among others.

Dipterocarps can grow very tall and large, about 30-50 meters tall – but in North Borneo, they regularly attain heights of 60-70+m, with some in the 80-90m range in East Sabah – and they form a very large proportion of the rainforest canopy here in Peninsular Malaysia. An extensive study showed that up to 57% of the emergent layer of the lowland forest in Peninsular Malaysia is composed of dipterocarps. In Sarawak, dipterocarps comprise even more of the emergent and canopy layer, at 75%, while in Sabah, it can be as high as 90%. Little wonder then, that Sabah has the tallest dipterocarps ever found to date.

The dipterocarps thrive on well-drained lands and usually can be found up to an altitude of around 1,000m. Their fruits consist of a hard and oily seed with one or two ‘wings’, which lends this family its name (from the Greek di = two; ptero = wing; carpos = seed). A striking characteristic of the Dipterocarp family is how rarely and irregularly they flower. Flowering only occurs once or twice every 10 years, sometimes longer. It usually happens at the same time as other trees in the same area.

(Source: Rainforest Journal and WWF Malaysia)

(Image credit: No Surplus blog, 10tree, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Next up: what are some of the highlights of a dipterocarp forest?