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Shorea macrophylla
Also called Light red meranti
Rubroshorea macrophylla, known as light red meranti or engkabang, is a large forest tree endemic to Borneo, grown for its oil-rich fruits rather than as an ornamental. It is not cultivated commercially and is harvested from the wild.
Rubroshorea macrophylla (called, along with some other dipterocarp species, light red meranti) is a species of flowering plant in the family Dipterocarpaceae. It is a tree endemic to Borneo.
Engkabang fruits cannot be cultivated commercially, thus can only be collected from the wild. The vegetable fat from the fruits - known as tecal, tegelam or minyak engkabang - can be used to manufacture cooking oil, soaps, and chocolate. The fruit is shelled and then dried in the hot sun. Then, the dried fruits are pounded to extract the oil and stored in bamboo containers called panjar. The Iban people are the main collectors of the fruits which they brought to the towns and sell to the local Chinese merchants at 50 dollars a picul. Engkabang fruits production was highly erratic. In 1961, only 10,000 dollars' worth of Engkabang fruits were available for exports. In 1962, the production rose to 16.01 million dollars. Exports in 1966 stood at 4.61 million. In contrast, there was zero production in 1967 as the fruits were destroyed by heavy rains of the northeast monsoon. In the 1960s to 1970s, the price of the dried fruits could fetch as high as RM 2 per kg. In 2013, the price reduced to RM 0.80 per kg.
Shorea astylosa · Richetia gibbosa · Rubroshorea leprosula · Shorea obtusa · Rubroshorea pauciflora · Sal tree · Shorea sumatrana · Shorea tumbuggaia · Shorean
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rubroshorea macrophylla by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
