1368

                          Aquilaria malaccensis Lam.

Family	:	Thymelaeaceae
Local name	:	English- Agarwood
Distribution	:	Native to Malaysia,found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand
Habitat	:	Upper canopy tree up to 750 meters elevation.
Endemic/Exotic	:	Endemic
IUCN Status		Critically endangered
Uses	:	The aromatic resin obtained from this tree is one of the most famous and most expensive on the planet. It has a very long history of use in religious ceremonies, at funerals etc in the Orient and is widely sought after as an ingredient in perfumery. Commonly harvested from the wild, trials are being carried out into growing it in plantations.
Key botanical characters: Large evergreen tree about 20 meters tall and 1.5–2.4 meters in girth with somewhat straight and fluted bole. Leaves are alternate 0.5-10 cm by 2-5 cm, oblong, lanceolate or elliptic, caudate, acuminate and glabrous with slender nerves..Venation is parallel and petiole is 0.3-0.5 cm long.Flowers are white in colour, bisexual, pedicellate, in both axillary and terminal umbellate cymes, shortly pedunculed, perianth, companulate, lobes 5 spreading and densely pilose. Pedicels is 0.5-0.8 cm long, slender. Perianth remains persistent in fruit and 1.3-1.5 cm long, silky densely villous, connate at the base. Stamens are 10, anthers 10 with subsessile disc. Ovary is subsessile, villous and two-celled. Stigma is large, subsessile. Fruit is capsular, 3-5 cm long, obovoid, pericarp coriaceous and densely tomentose. Seeds are ovoid with a long tail.