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ISOPTERA BORNEENSIS. 



The Dipterocarpous tree, IsopUra Bomeensis, is one of the 

 sources of oil nuts producing an important oil known generally 

 as Minyak Tenkawang. We are indebted to Mr. John ALLAN, 

 of Warrington, for an account of the habits of the tree and 

 the methods of preparing the oil in Pontianak, where he 

 has been lately travelling to study the origin of the oil seeds of 

 the East. 



hoptera bomeensis (Dipterocarpea} s is a native of Borneo. 

 Bangka, and also of Pahang, Muar, and Perak, where I have 

 occasionally met with it. It is a tree of very large size, from ioo 

 to 150 feet when full grown, but unlike other Dipterocarpous 

 trees it flowers and fruits often when quite small, so that one 

 can gather the flowers from the ground. The leaves are bright 

 green, oblong, acuminate, 4 inches long and two across, strongly 

 ribbed, thin in texture, and glabrous. The flowers in short 

 racemes small and yellow, are sweetly scented of vanilla, and in 

 Pontianak Mr. Allan says that the women are fond of gather- 

 ing them, when the tree is small enough to reach, to put in 

 their hair. The flowers are produced in October, the fruits in 

 January. The tree usually grows on river banks in wet silt mud 

 in which one sinks half-way up the leg. I have, however, seen it 

 in dryer spots. The fruit is half globular, something like an 

 acorn, about half-an-inch long and wide with five rounded ovate 

 wings spreading out flat, reddish, and strongly ribbed, three of the 

 wings are f-inch long, the other two hardly half as big. The 

 fruit falls into the streams or rivers near which the tree grows 

 and drifts down. The natives of Pontianak catch them in nets, 

 or gather them in bends of the river, where there is a block from 

 a fallen tree or projecting root. The nuts are then dried in the 

 sun and pounded in a rice pounder, which here is trough or boat 

 shaped. The pounded mass is then boiled in water and the fat 

 skimmed off, strained through a simple bamboo strainer and 

 poured into joints of bamboo. The fat is hard and waxlike. It 

 is used for cooking, imparting a peculiar flavour to the meat, 

 and is also used for greasing the copper pans in sngo and 

 tapioca making, when pearl or bullet sago or tapioca is being 

 made. 



The Minyak Tenkawang is also used for soap making in 

 Europe, but it is a hard fat and requires much treatment. 

 The tree is called Sinkawang in Muar, and Larat Api in 

 Pahang. Burck gives its name as Tengkawang Trendah 

 in Banka. Mr. Allan states that it grows in clusters, 

 many trees together, which is not usual in Dipterocarpece, though 

 it is characteristic of Dryobalanops Camphor the Camphor 

 tree. — Ed. 



