BOTANICAL 



JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Vol. XIX FEBRUARY, 1921 No. 2 



77(r Society is not rcsl^onsiblc, as a body, for the facts and opinions adimnccd 

 in the papers published by it. 



FIBER STUDIES OF PHILIPPINE DIPTEROCARPS ' 



By Luis J. Ki:vi;s 



Tlic Diptcrocarpacea* is preeminently ihe most important timber 

 producing family in the whole Indo-AIalayan region, an area including 

 the greater part of India. Burma, Siam, Cochin-China, the Malny 

 I'eninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Philippines, and the Indo- 

 Malayan Archipelago as far south as New Guinea. As Whit ford - has 

 pointed out, the dipterocarp family ranks second to none in the Philip- 

 pines as a source of timber and is fully as important in this respect as 

 the Pi)iaccac and /'(K/accac in the I'nited States. He estimates that 

 fully To per cent of the forest area is occupied by various representa- 

 tives of the family and that i)5 per cent of the volume of standing tim- 

 ber is dipterocarp. Nine genera '* and 70 species have been described 

 from the Philipi)ine Archipelago but this number promises to be ap- 

 j)reciably increased as the flora of the islands becomes better known. 

 The dipterocarp family is, and will continue to be, the most important 

 source of timber in the Philippine Islands for many vears to come. 



As is to be expected in a dominant family of such wide distribution 

 and multiplicity of forms, dipterocarp woods exhibit a wide range of 

 variation in color, durability, and strength and lend themselves to mul- 

 tifarious uses. The soft, light-colored woods, products of the genera 

 Pcntacuic, Parashorca, and Shorca furnish a large percentage of the 

 cheap construction timber in the Islands. The red Shorcas. such as 

 S. polyspcrma, S. ucgroscnsis, and other red dipterocarps are used for 



' Contribution from the Department of Wood Technology, The New York 

 State College of Forestry. 



'Whitford, H. N. "The Composition and Volume of Dipterocarp Forests in 

 the Philippines." Philippine Jour, of Science, Vol. IV, No. 6. Sec. C, Dec. 1909. 



' Fo.xworthy, F. W. "The Philippine Dipterocarpaceae." Philippine Jour, of 

 Science. Vol. XIII. Xo. ,!. May. 1!»1S. See also Vol. VI. Xo. 4, Sept.. 1011. 



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